- 5 -

as part of a deliberate policy to reduce our involvement.

The number of wings, and you can get the exact figure,-- the number of air wings in Southeast Asia has been reduced by a significant percentage. I don't know what it is.

Q The Tac air reduction has been compensated by an increase in the South Vietnamese?

DR. KISSINGER: No, not exactly. The South Vietnamese -- well, to give you an example, between January and February, in terms of numbers, 1969, we flew some 53,000 Tac air sorties. I don't know whether these figures aren't classified, but I just want to give you a feel for it.

In January-February, 1971, we flew something like 26,000. So that is a cut in half. In that same period, the South Vietnamese went from 3,800 to 6,500. In other words, we dropped by 27,000 and they went up by 2,500. They went from 3,800 to 6,500. In other words, they took up 10 percent of our reduction.

We went down by 27,000 and they went up by 2,800.

They cannot operate in the foreseeable future at the scale at which we have operated, and they have to look for other means of interdiction than we do. They cannot operate in the future at the profligate scale that we are used to.

Secondly, it means also that the replacing of Air Forces is a much more slower process than the present placement of ground forces, partly because of the material and partly because it takes longer to train them.

But we are not attempting to replace them one for one. It will be a more complex war for them from that point of view. It is less complex technically and more complex strategically.

Q Can you go into the residual force?

MORE

6-

[LCO]

DR. KISSINGER: I would think that the over-
whelming majority of what would be left would be Air Force
and logistics.

Q You haven't mentioned the Navy.

DR. KISSINGER: Navy sorties are included. This
includes everything of the U. S.

Q There is some reference to using our bombers
out of Thailand. (Inaudible tape.)

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to speculate on
what may be possible further down the road. The shape of
the debate in this country is changing with such extra-
ordinary rapidity. I remember three years ago it used to
be considered the height of enlightenment to believe that
negotiations were a useful way of ending the war.

Today, it is considered by many the height of
obtuseness to believe that negotiations can still be
a means of ending the war.

There used to be a time when it used to be said
that we should substitute Vietnamese for Americans. Now
that is under attack.

So I don't want to speculate what would be the
position.

The view that the President has taken is this:
There is nothing that has been given more prayerful
attention than how to end this war. There is no glory for
anybody in ending this war except if we can have a society
that can continue to function after the war. We have never
given up the hope that there will be some point along the
way where reasonable people in this country will conclude
that while they may disagree with this or that tactic, we
have moved in the direction that responsible indiv iduals
can subscribe to, and that we have kept, in general, the
promises that we have made, and those that we may for some
reason be not able to fulfill, which hasn't happened yet,
would be due to overwhelming circumstances that couldn't
be foreseen.

MORE

- 7 -

We believe that we have to give the South Vietnamese a reasonable chance to stand on their own feet, and that what would happen to the American body politic if an American President, after seven years of war and 40,000 casualties, consciously turned the country over to the Communists, would be something from which we would suffer for many years, even if there is a temporary feeling of relief in the immediate aftermath of such a settlement.

We cannot be responsible for all eternity for the survival of a government in Saigon. What we can do is to leave it in a condition where, with good conscience, reasonable people can say, "They ought to be able to do it."

That is the difference between us and some of our critics. Some of our critics feel, "Just turn it over." We feel we want to give them a reasonable chance. We cannot guarantee it for the indefinite future.

We think we are within sight in a measurable period of that objective. Whether that will take, at that particular point, bombing from Thailand depends partly also on what Hanoi is going to do.

It is true that in the early part of the war we grossly underestimated Hanoi's determination and capacity. But it is also true that at this juncture of the war we are at a point where Hanoi's capacities, at least, are not what they used to be.

It isn't a foregone conclusion that South Vietnam, with American materials of the kind that have been used, should not be able to prevent itself from being overrun after the interim period we are still now talking about. This is what this is all about.

I know this is an evasive answer. I don't know what the situation will be.

It is one thing to have the President under attack on unemployment or the normal debate of American politic. It is another to have the credibility in such an anguishing problem under constant attack.

MORE

- 8 -

We still haven't given up the hope that somewhere
along the road we are going to find a consensus again on
what surely isn't a partisan problem. The Vietnam war just
isn't a partisan problem. It is a national tragedy.

Q Dr. Kissinger, at the last news conference the
President was asked whether the withdrawal of troops from
Vietnam, United States withdrawal, was contingent upon the
enemy withdrawing from Laos and Cambodia.

Our own problem cannot be told until the enemy is
out of those neighboring countries.

Can you explain the significance of that?

DR. KISSINGER: I said until we get the consensus
we have to do what is right, because we have to be able to
live with ourselves afterwards. This is the basis of the
President's policy on Laos and Cambodia.

The President was talking about a negotiated
settlement. We believe, as we expressed in our October 7th
speech, that a final settlement in Indochina would have to
embrace Cambodia and Laos.

On an OFF-THE-RECORD basis, the southern part of
Laos is of more central importance to the future of South
Vietnam than the northern part of Laos. This has been well-
established over the record of the last 10 years.

For example, if we had a cease-fire, which is
part of our proposal, only in South Vietnam, but the war in
Cambodia continued, what would happen or could happen is
that the North Vietnamese would put all their forces into
Cambodia, knock over Cambodia, reestablish their supply
lines from the sea to the sanctuaries, and then having
reestablished their supply position which gave them the
strong position prior to our incursions into the Cambodian
sanctuaries, then turn back into South Vietnam and break
the cease-fire there.

This is why a cease-fire in both places has to be
an integral package. We think the same about withdrawal of
forces if it is part of a negotiated settlement. If it is
not part of a negotiated settlement, then we would leave

MORE

- 9 -

under conditions which are foreseeable, in which the South Vietnamese would have a capability to protect themselves even against remaining North Vietnamese forces, and enough of a capability to prevent those North Vietnamese forces from reestablishing sanctuary areas in conjunction with whatever Cambodian forces are available. So we have those two tracks.

The Cambodian war is a tough one for the North Vietnamese to fight unless they have a port which they can operate, because it is a 600-mile supply line, while the South Vietnamese have a 50- to 100-mile supply line.

On the other hand, until they have secured Cambodian bases, their conduct of the war in Military Regions 3 and 4 is very complex. This is why we think on purely military grounds the Hanoi situation is not all that brilliant.

We are not saying that they are going to be defeated. We are saying they are getting into a position where they may not be able to win in a manageable period.

Q Sir, would you discuss the August and October elections of South Vietnam in the light of what Senator Stevenson has lately said and what is being said of the USIA, in brief, that we are supporting the Thieu Government and that it is an illegitimate government, and Big Minh is the answer to all this? Have you heard this?

DR. KISSINGER: At the risk of weakening my tenuous relationship with the Senate, I must confess I haven't read what Senator Stevenson has said.

Are you telling me that USIA has put out that Big Minh is our hope?

Q Mr. Stevenson has accused USIA of campaigning for the sitting regime. I went over there and they said no.

DR. KISSINGER: USIA said that?

Q A person of USIA just back. This is off the record.

MORE

- 10 -

DR. KISSINGER: Just get me his name so I can get at it.

Let me be serious about it. Our position is that we want the election as free as it can possibly be; that we do not, as a Government, take any position in favor of one candidate or the other.

You gentlemen have been in Vietnam and you know the facts of life. I do not exclude that there are some people in some departments there who favor one fellow and some who favor another fellow. So I cannot guarantee that as you go around Saigon you cannot meet officials, some of whom say Thieu is the only man to run the government, and others who say Big Minh is the hope for the future. I can't exclude that.

As a government, no one has any authority to take any side in the election, and I am not aware of anything that is being done.

Let me make the comment not in reply to Senator Stevenson since I haven't read what Senator Stevenson has said. Insofar as an Ambassador is accredited to the functioning government, it is fairly common that he tends to be accused of favoring the existing government, because that is the government he deals with.

No doubt those are the people that on human grounds he knows best, and no doubt if you went around the world the majority of the Ambassadors prefer the status quo to which they are used.

Q The exception being Chile.

DR. KISSINGER: They are not used to it yet. Give it six years.

Well, there are obvious exceptions. I don't know whether Bunker privately would prefer Thieu. I am not aware of anything that we are doing that is deliberately beyond the normal government contact that favors Thieu.

MORE

- 11 -

[[c]]

Having said this, let me make some qualifications of, I think, what has to be a fair judgment.

I think all of you who know Vietnam recognize that the incumbent in Vietnam has unusual advantages, with or without the American Ambassador. In Vietnam, the tendency seems to be that a government is popular because it is strong, it isn't strong because it is popular. Therefore, a man who governs and controls the administrative apparatus has some advantages.

I think this is inherent in the situation, and I don't deny that. Therefore, I don't even know how we would go about intervening beyond the advantages that he already enjoys.

But we want the election with this qualification, about which we can't do anything: to be as free as possible, with the widest possible participation.

As far as Washington is concerned, we will not favor any American intervention. Is Big Minh the hope? I don't want to express an opinion on that. I think we will just stay out of the election campaign.

MORE

- 12 -

Q Doctor, I would like to ask you about on page two of the President's speech last night where he rates the impact of the Laos operation as being more disruptive of the enemy supply lines and their capability of sustaining major offenses than were the operations in Cambodia. That is a little startling in some ways considering the highly descriptive terminology used on the South Vietnamese retreat. Can you tell us what is behind this statement?

DR. KISSINGER: I know I have talked to Marquis about it. We have, over the last three weeks, tried to make as thorough an analysis of the impact of the Laotion operations as we could. We are reaching a point now in our withdrawal policy where, first of all, every increment of withdrawal becomes a larger percentage of the total.

Secondly, where we are reaching margins where, if our judgments are wrong, we are going to pay a dramatic price. We have no safety nets into which we can fall.

T hirdly, we believe that it isn't in the interest of this country -- we are not talking now about the Administration -- to suffer another calamity, like Tet, in which three years of effort are exposed as an inadequate understanding of the situation, not because of the future of this Administration, which would also be affected by it, but because of the future of confidence in the Government itself.

Therefore, we have spent the last three weeks making the most thorough analysis of which we are capable. This doesn't guarantee that it is right. I just want to tell you that we are not flippantly going at this. I don't want to bore you with how we did it.

What we tried to do, just to run through it very quickly, is we tried to determine the requirement of the North Vietnamese in conducting their level of military operations in South Vietnam in 1970, how many supplies they needed.

Q 1971?

DR. KISSINGER: No, what impact they consumed in 1970. We analyzed then where they got those supplies from,

MORE

2

- 13 -

the portion that came in through Sihanoukville, the portion
that was bought on the open economy, and the portion that was
brought down the trail. We then looked at how they had
to meet these requirements.

Q Can you give us that breakdown?

DR. KISSINGER: The percentage? I don't want to give
you the figures but I can give you the percentage. Eighty
percent of the ordnance -- let me tell you what they had to replace
I won't go into the figures. They had to replace several
thousand tons of ordnance that came in through Sihanoukville,
and another several thousand tons of purchases on the open
market.

You have to consider also that in order to get one
ton into Cambodia or South Vietnam we calculate they have to
put three or four tons into the pipeline when it comes down the
trail because they lose some of it to bombing, and they consume
the rest of it on the way in the form of POL and rice.

In order to get one ton out at the other end, that
is pretty well established, that they need three or four
tons at the upper end of the pipeline.

This is why Sihanoukville was so important to them,
because every ton they put into Sihanoukville was a
genuine ton. 100 percent or 98 percent of what went into
Sihanoukville reached their depots, while only 25 to 30
percent of what entered the trail reaches the bottom.

And finally, after the Cambodian operation they
kept 20,000 more in anticipation of Lam Son, and we can't
claim Lam Son except for the anticipation of it. And in
anticipation of Lam Son they kept 20,000 more troops in
Laos than they had last year, which meant that a big
slice of what was put into the trail was consumed in
Laos and never left.

We then attempted to compute the caches that were
picked up in the Lam Son operation, the consumption of
supplies to support the Third Division in six weeks of
combat during the Lam Son operation.

Some very rough estimates of bombing damage in which

MORE

- 14 -

[10]

3

I am sure our estimate is very low because we through out
all ridiculous assertions.

I will give you an example of that in a minute.

We came up with the conclusion that the total of all
of that is actually, in terms of tonnage, greater than of
Cambodia. But it isn't the tonnage that matters so much. Let
me put it in other terms.

We now believe, and we may be wrong -- you know,
this is just telling you what our judgment is -- that if
they operated the trails at full capacity until the end
of May, and if you assume that these trails have not been
affected by six weeks of combat across them, and if you
assume that the rainy season doesn't begin until the first
of June, under all these favorable assumptions for them they
will barely get in supplies for a protracted warfare
strategy for the year 1971.

Q Would you repeat that? I didn't quite get
that.

DR. KISSINGER: They will just meet their
requirements to maintain the '70 level of combat in '71.

But this gives them a lot of favorable assumptions.
Let me tell you what assumptions we made that favor them
for us to come to this conclusion.

We assumed, for example, that we are not destroying
any more by air of their trucks than we did last year, which
was probably wrong.

We are assuming that the mix of cargoes is the same
as it was last year, when in fact probably they have to carry
a lot more gasoline now because of the destruction of the
pipeline.

We are assuming that they could use the roads
again from the day the South Vietnamese troops withdrew until
the end of May. And we are assuming that they can use the
roads until the end of May at full capacity.

In those circumstances we believe they can just meet

MORE

- 15 -

[10]

the requirements for protracted warfare through 1971.

Let me put this into perspective. That doesn't mean they cannot have high points, because they can forego protracted warfare in one military region and pour it all into another military region.

They are under no requirement to keep up protracted warfare at a uniform level throughout the country. All we can say is it reduces their flexibility. It doesn't reduce some choices.

They cannot cut protracted warfare below a certain level for this reason: We have an indicator here of governmental pacification that is somewhat more rigorous and complex than the official one. It doesn't matter why it is more rigorous. At any rate, it is more rigorous.

We have found that if, by our indicators, governmental control in an area gets to be more than 75 percent, that then the North Vietnamese problem becomes very tough because then they can only fight conventional war. Then they have to give up guerrilla war. Then they cannot coordinate guerrilla and conventional war effectively.

They may not pick it out by those percentages, but their strategy has to be to keep governmental control below the 75 percent level.

One of the great achievements of the last year which cannot get reported in newspapers because there is no dramatic announcement to be made is that in military regions three and four the vast majority of the provinces now have a control level above 75 percent, or at least the majority of the provinces.

The result of this is if they step down their protracted war level too low, if the government makes spectacular pacification gains, when they come back they can only come back with a general offensive and they may not even be able to do protracted war. So that is their problem.

This is what the President had in mind. We believe

MORE

[LC]

- 16 -

through the rest of this year they cnot do a general
offensive in military regions three and four, and they
probably cannot do many high points.

We believe they can probably not do a general
offensive in military regions one and two, but they can do a
series of high points. We expect a series of high points
in military region one and two this summer.

They will have to spend a good part of next year's
dry season, assuming there is no interruption, building their
stockpiles if they want to launch a general offensive in
1972.

This is the basis for the President's assertion.
Of course, we paid a heavier price to get these achievements,
but without the Laotion operation we believe that they would
have been in a position to do a general offensive in
military regions one and two, and some high points in
military regions three and four, with no general offensive.

Q: This year?

DR. KISSINGER: This year.

Q: Do you feel that the President's speech has
somewhat or substantially altered the debate over Vietnam
in the United States or is likely to in the coming months?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't know. I really don't know. What the President has said is that if this doesn't do it, he doesn't know what else he can do. All he can do is to tell the American people what, in his best judgment, is needed for the peace of the country and for the peace of the world. He isn't doing it because there is any great glory in this war. He isn't doing it because it is not painless for him, to put it mildly. But he feels that we would be ashamed of ourselves as a people if we succumbed now to a policy that has no clear direction, and that after a momentary period of relief if the war were just wound up, and the full implications of what we have done sank in on us, we would be torn, as he said --we would substitute

MORE

[LC]

- 17 -

the agony of recrimination, or whatever it is, for the agony
of war, and that would be a more permanent scar.

He feels this because he also believes we are
close to achieving what we said, and he has put his political
position on the line. That is the test of a democracy. We
don't know whether it will work or not. What we all hope for
here is that it is to end the war as a united people, and to
see whether there is some way of stopping the constant
escalation of oppression. But we can't be sure.

Q You said something earlier about hoping that
reasonable people would accept the Administration's policy
or the reasoning behind it. Is it feasible, politically,
at any point for you to reduce the rate of withdrawal?

DR. KISSINGER: We have always tried to reach a rate
of withdrawal that we had some confidence in being able
to sustain. I tell you, I think that if we came to the
conclusion that something were necessary, what the President
feels is that after all this country has gone through now for
seven years, when you take some of the debates about with-
drawal rate -- we can play with numbers as well as the next
guy. We are now at 14,300. Well, why not 16,275, or
18,103? You can juggle these figures to a fair-thee-well.

Our judgment is, on these withdrawal rate, there
are only two positions: Either you get out now or you get
out responsibly. The worst thing you can do is to play
around.

I don't want to say getting out now wouldn't be
responsible. We obviously think it isn't. But you
either get out now or you get out in the way that we
believe will achieve the objective of giving the South
Vietnamese a reasonable chance.

The worst thing you can do is to invent a
withdrawal rate that gives you great headlines for the
day, and the process unravels the situation in South Vienam
and makes it impossible for you to have achieved your
objective.

MORE

- 18 -

Then you will have combined the disadvantaged ages of a relatively slow rate -- because it doesn't speed it up that much. You will have combined the disadvantages of a slow rate with the disadvantages of a failure.

We do not now foresee that we have to change it, but we don't want to commit to it. I think if we come to the conclusion, what we have put before the American people up to now is something that in our conscience we believe we could sustain, and being that close to the end we would like to keep that record.

I believe what we would do if we came to that conclusion, which isn't probable, is we would expect to go to the American people.

Q (Inaudible)

DR. KISSINGER: Mr. Wilosn, you know, of course, that I will never admit this. It is one thing I will not admit. I may admit mistakes, but I won't admit we haven't given consideration to something. That is the job of my office.

Historians might say whether the fastest way of ending the war at some point might be never to withdraw until you have a satisfactory settlement. That is not an outrageous proposition to make.

I remember it is now way down the drain in terms of public opinion, but about two and a half years ago when we first came in a number of my dovish friends from the academic community were arguing that one should not withdraw but negotiate, and one should just sit and use the troops to negotiate. And, of course, I have to tell you honestly this is the race we are running, that the rate of withdrawal itself may have turned out to be impossible. In this sense we have to relate what is domestically bearable to what is possible. We believe we have struck a balance here, but it is going to be a close one. It is going to be a very close race.

MORE

- 19 -

Q I think the President has created some confusion with respect to the residual force, which would in no way mean we were out of there in total. But in the absence of a negotiated settlement, in your judgment, is a Korea-type of solution feasible and is it a logical or reasonable type of solution if we get no negotiated settlement at all?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, in Korea, of course, you had a residual force as a result of a negotiated settlement and you didn't have casualties of any substantial size.

I am just not an expert on what the American people will support, as an individual, not speaking for the Administration.

I think in three or four years -- don't say a White House spokesman said this, or an ex-professor -- we will look back on this period and wonder what had possessed us all. I think this will look to us as a period in which there was a sort of mass obsession suddenly. This is why it is important for government to hold steady.

Q Don't you think (inaudible)

DR. KISSINGER: We are not aiming for that. I just don't want to speculate. You know what I am doing. I once said the difference between the European press and the American press is the European press asks the conceptual questions, and the American press engages me in a contest to see whether they can get me to say something that I don't really want to say.

You know I don't want to say anything about terminal dates. Therefore, we may be engaged in a game of skills to see whether I will give a terminal date.

Q But the fact is the President has engaged in terms of terminal dates. He has set a goal, which would indicate a terminal date. Yet in the light of everything you said, is that attainable under a situation which would give it a reasonable chance to work?

MORE

- 20 -

[LC]

DR. KISSINGER: If it were not for the prisoners. We believe that somewhere in the next year a point can be reached. If you are asking me simply can they maintain themselves, I don't want to get to the time when that is feasible.

Can we have two more questions? I am late to a meeting of the new Committee of International Economic Policy.

Q (Question inaudible.)

DR. KISSINGER: This may be true. We may have gained more time. You gentlemen are in a much better position than I to judge that. I know for a fact that nothing the President said yesterday, no decision he made, was in any way affected by his reading of the Calley thing.

In fact, the outcome may be affected by the Calley thing, but the general direction in which he was going to go, and even the specific were quite independent of the Calley thing. Even if it turned out that it has the impact that you describe.

Whenever you want to, get to the last question.

Q Have you anything on the prisoners of war?

DR. KISSINGER: Really none. I don't want to talk about gut feelings and impressions. None on the prisoners separate from other issues, anyway. As all of you know, I have always believed that somewhere along the line there would be a negotiation. There was a chance of a negotiation. That is a view that, if anything, I have now strengthened. This, I know, is not the common view.

I have been told by some people who deal with the prisoner thing that they detect a slight possibility now, but I don't want to say anything because, really, I have been meeting with the wives of the POWs, and I am conscious of what they have gone through. I think their hopes have been raised too often.

MORE

[L.C.]

- 21 -

I think the next time we say something we ought to say something positive. So I cannot tell you that I have anything on that.

Mr. Wilson?

Q (Question inaudible.)

DR. KISSINGER: Well, look, I am not here to give a press conference of my personal philosophy. If any of you want to pursue that at some point, as long as it is clearly understood that this is I speaking as an individual, as a philosopher of history, which is what I started at, I would be glad to do it. But I really would prefer not to do it when it gets mixed up.

You know, it is a tragic period in our history. I would say that you can't run a society on victories, on reconciliations. We have to ask ourselves where we want to be at some period. There has to be a margin or ambiguity in every tough decision in government. You cannot prove that you make it. This is what makes it tough. If it were self-evident, everybody would know.

In societies which have a measure of cohesiveness, there is enough confidence to give a government the margin that is necessary, that is inherent in the ambiguity of complex decisions.

And when that is constantly under attack, then it may be that the whole problem of government becomes unmanageable. This is independent of the correctness of any individual policy.

I would like to go into this issue, and if any of you want to, as long as it is clearly understood I am speaking for myself, and it is a long subject. It is the key question, in my judgment, of our time. If anyone wants to ask a last substantive question, I will take it.

Q At the time the President made the last announcement prior to last night, he indicated that in April (inaudible)

MORE

- 22 -

[LC]

Last night he didn't say anything beyond December
1. We were able to speculate, most of us (inaudible)

What will be our thinking as to after December 1?
Will there be a Thanksgiving announcement as to where we
will stand through the following six months? Where do we
go from here?

DR. KISSINGER: In the past, there has always been
an announcement about two weeks, give or take a week,
before the end of one period. So if that pattern is
followed -- well, I don't want to speculate. Every time
one of these announcements draws near, everyone starts
escalating them. I would hope it is reasonable to assume
that in that time frame the President would say how he
envisions the next period with which he would proceed.

Q (Inaudible.)

DR. KISSINGER: I am sure that you will find many
people in this town who will be eager to answer that
question. But I really don't think it serves any purpose.
In the past, we have maintained the rate of withdrawal
we have established, but we want to make a judgment when
it draws nearer.

At this point when we have just completed an
investigation of what we can do over a foreseeable
future, it would be irresponsible for me to speculate on
what we will do at the end of this year.

Thank you very much.

THE PRESS: Thank you, Dr. Kissinger.

END

Holmes Alexander (McNaught Syndicate)

Charles Bartlett (Chicago Sun-Times)

Robert Baskin (Dallas Morning News)

Bruce Biossat (Newspaper Enterprise Association)

Jim Carey (Copley News Service)

Marquis Childs (United Features)

Roscoe Drummond (Los Angeles Times Syndicate)

Rowland Evans (Publishers-Hall Syndicate)

Jack Germond (Gannett)

John Goldsmith (Publishers-Hall Syndicate)

Jerry Greene (New York Daily News)

James J. Kilpatrick (Evening Star Syndicate)

Joseph Kraft (Publishers-Hall Syndicate)

Paul Martin (U.S. News and World Report)

Clark Mollenhoff (Des Moines Tribune)

Phil Potter (Baltimore Sun)

Earl Richert (Scripps-Howard)

Jerry Horst (North American Newspaper Alliance)

Nick Thimmesch (Newsday Specials)

Ralph de Toledano (King Features Syndicate)

William White (United Features)

Richard Wilson (Des Moines Register and Tribune)