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set in motion. If HK wishes to enter into the project, the first stage is to draw up an agreement with the producers which is sufficiently binding for the producers to make the necessary commitments on the strength of it.

D.3. It is most important that the producers and HK negotiate with the rest of the world as a single unit, which means that the agreement between them must be drawn up with care and a full understanding of its implication, and all concerned must be happy with its provisions. Since there are a number of rights (broadcast, television, closed-circuit television, institutional and domestic video, publication (general), publication (educational) etc.), and also a variety of world markets, this agreement is bound to take time to finalise. Since it has to be complete before the requisite assurances can be given to broadcasting organisations all over the world, this extra time has been taken into account when thinking of possible starting dates. However, even with a target date that sounds as distant as 1982-3, the process cannot begin too soon in order to ensure the outstanding quality we all seek.

© Video Arts Television Ltd./David Paradine Group 1979

NBC News

Material From NBC News Regarding The Program

"HENRY KISSINGER: AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID FROST"

To Be Broadcast Thursday, Oct. 11 (10-11 PM) On NBC

Because of the controversy surrounding the broadcast of the
NBC News/David Frost interview of former Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger, NBC will make a brief on-air statement
preceding the program stating NBC's position regarding remarks
made by Frost. That is enclosed.

NBC News has also decided to release the enclosed entire
unedited transcript of the taping session which primarily
concerned the bombing of Cambodia (taped Wed., Oct. 3).

Dr. Kissinger, as the interviewee, also suggested that we
make the full transcript available for publication. Additionally,
he requested that we release a clarifying letter from him to
NBC News concerning elements of that interview. That is also
included.

On page 7 of the full transcript, there is a discussion of
bombing area 704 in Cambodia. That was a point of contention
between Frost and Kissinger. Kissinger, in his letter, maintains
that 704 was in reality 740. Area 704 was originally mentioned

the Destruction of Cambodia." At the request of NBC News, Mr. Shawcross went back to the Pentagon and after three checks discovered that, indeed, the area referred to in his book and in Frost's question was 740 and not 704. The book was in error. A copy of Mr. Shawcross' letter is enclosed.

Questioning on the topic has been deleted from the broadcast by NBC News. Mr. Frost, having received a copy of the letter from Shawcross, also urged the deletion.

Enclosures:

1 -- Opening on-air statement from NBC News

2 -- Henry Kissinger letter to William Small, President of NBC News

3 -- William Shawcross letter

4 -- Unedited transcript of complete Oct. 3 taping session concerning Cambodia

--NBC NEWS

(OVER A SLIDE READING "A STATEMENT BY NBC NEWS")

What follows is an interesting and lively interview with Dr. Henry Kissinger. We believe our viewers should be aware of an equally lively controversy behind the scenes.

This hour is a distillation of two interviews taped last week. David Frost, Kissinger and NBC News agreed to a third taping on Saturday to continue a discussion on Cambodia over which there was disagreement on certain points and to discuss additional subjects.

Mr. Frost later changed his mind and withdrew from participation and made a number of public allegations.

NBC wishes to state categorically that Dr. Kissinger was at no time given any guarantee on what material would or would not be included, nor any privilege that would compromise journalistic standards. At all times, Mr. Frost was encouraged by NBC News to ask tough and difficult questions and Dr. Kissinger said he expected that and did not object.

Since the broadcast you now see is, of course, edited... NBC responding to a request by Dr. Kissinger, has agreed to release the full transcript -- unedited -- of the Cambodian section. It is being released to the press and to any viewer writing NBC News for a copy. We believe you'll find the edited version faithful to the complete interview.

###

October 9, 1979

Dear Mr. Small:

In light of the publicity attached to the taping of the Cambodia section of David Frost's interview of me, I believe it would serve everybody's interest if the entire transcript were released to the press.

As you know during the broadcast Mr. Frost referred to documents never shown to me and made several statements of fact based on inadequate information. Let me point out a few key ones:

1. There are hundreds if not thousands of documents bearing on the bombing of the Cambodian sanctuaries. To select any one of them for discussion is inherently misleading. In this case there is in fact documentary material which contradicts Mr. Frost's innuendos. (It seems clear that he confuses base area 704 with base area 740.) But whatever one document may be made to imply, the overall record supports without any question the following statement of facts:

a. No target was ever selected by the White House; no recommendation by the Joint Chiefs against bombing was ever overruled by the White House; not all recommendations by the Chiefs to bomb were approved.

b. Every target was proposed by the Commander in Saigon, through the Pacific Commander in Hawaii to the Joint Chiefs of Staff who recommended it to the Secretary of Defense. The Secretary of Defense then sent the consolidated recommendation to the White House together with his own. There were no exceptions. The White House never approved a target not recommended by both the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

c. Recommendations were accompanied by a statement that civilian casualties were expected to be minimal.

Mr. William J. Small
President, News Division
NBC News
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, New York 10020

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d. No statement that there was risk of significant civilian casualties was ever overruled. Any insinuation to the contrary is simply false. Former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Tom Moorer will confirm the accuracy of these statements. They are supported by the written record.

2. The United States did not recognize Lon Nol on March 19 as Mr. Frost alleged. My logs show no meetings of any kind on March 18 contrary to Mr. Frost's assertions. On March 19 the State Department announced that the question of recognition of the government of Cambodia did not arise since in effect the old government continued. The only change was the deposition of the monarch. Almost all other nations--including the UN and the USSR--took the same position. On March 21 President Nixon in a press conference stated our formal position, making clear its temporary nature and leaving open Sihanouk's return: "...we have, as you note, established relations on a temporary basis with the government which has been selected by the Parliament and will continue to deal with that government as long as it appears to be the government of the nation. I think any speculation to which way this government is going to turn, what will happen to Prince Sihanouk when he returns, would both be premature and unhelpful." *Emphasis added*/

3. The quotation ascribed to Ambassador Swank is incorrect as is clear from reading his press conference of September 5, 1973.

4. Sihanouk repeated his denial that Cambodia was being bombed in August 1969 to Senator Mansfield (according to official reporting).

5. The quotes ascribed to me regarding the incursions into the sanctuaries were totally out of context and grossly misleading. Any fair reading of the backgrounders will confirm that my comments were in answer to questions seeking to explain the reason for the ground operations and why they had not taken place previously; they were not addressed to air operations at all.

10 October, 1979.

Dear Nigel,

The conviction that Area 704 was "Supper" was based on the
White Paper submitted by Deputy Secretary of Defense
William P. Clements, Jr., to the Senate Armed Services
Committee on September 9, 1973. It was reprinted in the
Committee's hearing record, "Bombing in Cambodia" p.481-
494. The original of the White Paper also describes "Supper"
as 704.

Following your request on Sunday, we checked with the
Pentagon to see if there could have been a mistake, since
Dr. Kissinger was certain that "Supper" was in fact 740.
The historians of the JCS eventually came back and said that
they had found no evidence to link 704 with "Supper". On
the contrary, the available documents showed 740 as "Supper".
They therefore believed there must have been a clerical
error in the original White Paper - one that remained
undiscovered until now. That also seems to us by far the
most likely conclusion.

As you know, David Frost and John Birt feel that, in these
circumstances, the exchange about Area 704 should not be
included. I agree with them.

Mr. Nigel Ryan,
N.B.C. News,
30 Rockefeller Plaza,
New York, NY 10020

SHAWCROSS'S DOCUMENTS

Shawcross's citation of US government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act is impressive only to one unaware of what the documents really contain. It is absurd to imagine that the Defense Department documents released to Shawcross make a case against the military actions that the Defense Department was carrying out. On the contrary, they make very clear the justification for the actions taken. On independent examination the documents themselves make the best case for American policy in Cambodia. What Shawcross has done is to quote them only selectively, to distort their meaning, and to omit entirely the mountain of evidence in the same documents that refutes his thesis.

The following are a few of the more egregious examples:

## BASE AREA 704

**Allegation:** Shawcross accuses the White House of ordering 247 B-52 attacks on a North Vietnamese sanctuary, Base Area 704, that the Joint Chiefs of Staff in April 1969 had recommended against attacking with B-52's because it was heavily populated by Cambodian civilians (pp. 28-29):

> "Three of the fifteen sanctuaries--base areas 704, 354 and 707, which had 'sizeable concentrations of Cambodian civilian or military populations' in or around them--were not recommended for attack at all. (The definition of 'sizeable' is not known; presumably it was higher than the 1,640 Cambodians living in the Breakfast site, which they had approved.) The Chiefs' warning seems to have made no difference. Base Area 704 appeared on the White House's Menu as SUPPER. In the course of events, 247 B-52 missions were flown against it."

**Fact:** This is a howling error, as Mr. Shawcross himself has now admitted. The reality is that the target area code-named SUPPER in the MENU series, against which 247 B-52 sorties were flown, was Base Area 740 in northeastern Cambodia (about 200 miles away from Base Area 704, which is in southern Cambodia along the Meking River). Thus Shawcross's assertion that Base Area 704 was attacked is wrong. The map on p. 27 of his book labeling Base Area 704 as SUPPER is also wrong. Base Area 740 was minimally populated by civilians.

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Shawcross has admitted the error in a letter on October 10, 1979, to Nigel Ryan of NBC News, which was released to the press. (David Frost, learning of the error, was sufficiently embarrassed to request that the taped segment of the Kissinger interview in which Frost repeated the false allegation be deleted from the NBC program broadcast on October 11.) In the letter Shawcross excuses his error on the ground that he relied on Defense Department public statements of September 1973 which indeed misidentified SUPPER as Base Area 704, apparently through a clerical error. What Shawcross omits to mention is that he had in his possession a document (CM-4750-69, 25 November 1969), released to him under the Freedom of Information Act, in which the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs recommended B-52 strikes against Base Area 740 as part of the MENU series. Shawcross also had available to him a similar document dated 20 November 1969 which was published in the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings of 1973, recommending "additional" B-52 strikes against Base Area 740 in the MENU series. (See pp. 151-153 of the hearings.) Thus Shawcross chose to ignore evidence in his possession that refuted the allegation to which he devoted two pages in his book.

It is interesting to read what else these documents contain. According to the JCS memorandum of 25 November 1969, Base Area 740 contained enemy troop concentrations; anti-aircraft, field artillery, rocket, and mortar positions; eleven North Vietnamese base camps and bivouac areas; two storage areas; road and trail networks including six bridges; as well as numerous bunkers, trenches, and defensive positions--none closer than 1½ kilometers to any civilian habitation. The document also recommended attacks on military targets near Base Area 350: six North Vietnamese base camps and bivouac areas; four supply areas with petroleum stocks and other supplies; two truck parks with revetments; 104 structures and bunkers; trenches and defensive positions; and extensive road and trail networks with three bridges. (The civilian habitation closest to these targets was nine kilometers away.) Shawcross omitted any mention of this information.

APRIL 9, 1969, JCS MEMORANDUM

**Allegation:** Shawcross quotes in highly selective fashion from a memo from JCS Chairman Earle Wheeler to Secretary Laird dated April 9, 1969 (JCSM-207-69, Appendix E), in order to imply a callous disregard for the safety of Cambodian civilians living in or near the North Vietnamese military bases. Shawcross acknowledges that the memorandum was a recommendation of attacks on these base areas; he admits the memo's conclusion that civilian casualties would be "minimal" since the North Vietnamese excluded Cambodian civilians from their military

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dispositions. Yet his lengthy quotations (pp. 28-29) include only the caveats which the memo included for the sake of honesty: that all estimates of civilian casualties were "tenuous at best," that "some Cambodian casualties" would likely be sustained, that the "surprise effect" of attacks could tend to increase the danger, "as could the probable lack of protective shelters around Cambodian homes to the extent that exists in South Vietnam."

Fact: First of all, the context makes clear that these risks applied to combined air and ground operations against the sanctuaries, not to aerial attacks on military targets. Furthermore, Shawcross simply omits key passages from the memo that give force to its conclusion that the risk to civilians was minimal in any case. For example:

"a. There is very little mixing of the VC/NVA forces with the Cambodian populace. Conversely, Cambodians rarely go into areas under de facto control of the VC/NVA.

"b. Cambodian villages and populated areas are readily identifiable and can be essentially avoided in conducting preplanned operations into the base areas.

"c. Very few permanent structures exist in the base areas outside the Cambodian villages. Virtually all those that do exist are enemy-occupied."

The paragraph listing the caveats that Shawcross quotes ended with the following sentence, which Shawcross omits:

"On the other hand, the de facto separation of Cambodians from the VC/NVA Forces in and around the identified base areas, coupled with the very shallow depth of penetration planned for the operations, would tend to limit civilian casualties." (Appendix E, p.28)

The same conclusion is repeated emphatically throughout the memorandum. For example:

"... the enemy's military forces in Cambodia habitually occupy areas close to the SVN border and away from significant Cambodian presence." (cover memo, p. 2).

And: