ALSEP '01 '92 06:27 KISSINGER ASSOC

P. 4

[y]

2 Zas Tchen
investigation by the Committee staff appears to be taking a
different turn.

It has focused not on Vietnamese violations but on what
American actions may have caused these transgressions. Committee
members have been reported as hinting at specific numbers of
prisoners left behind. Accusations of deliberate deception have
been left uncontradicted, to say the least. The Committee staff
have been taking sworn depositions from the members of the
American negotiating team with questions strongly implying that
mistakes were made that led to Americans being left behind.
(before, I may say, the courtesy of one word to me, the principle
negotiator).

The men and women who worked so tirelessly and ably to end a
divisive war on honorable terms and to bring back our prisoners
and achieve an accounting for the MIAs do not deserve such a
libel. "The Committee owes them an acknowledgement"

that the Administration in which they served had no
higher goal than to obtain the release of all prisoners
and an accounting of MIAs;

that they persevered for four grueling years in the
face of the most bitter divisions since the Civil War
to preserve the leverage needed to obtain the release

06/31/92 SEP 01 '92 06:27 KISSINGER ASSOC

W&H

is no basis, two decades after the fact, for Congress to accuse
the last five Presidents, their White House staffs,
their Secretaries of State and Defense, and our career diplomatic
and military services, for knowingly or negligently failing to do
everything in their power to identify and recover all of our
prisoners and MIAs.

Mr. Chairman, I ask the Committee's leave to raise a point
of personal concern. I have been given more credit than I may
deserve for my part in the negotiations that finally extricated
us on honorable terms from the quagmire of Vietnam. But I would
gladly forego that credit -- even the Nobel Peace Prize -- than
have to read in a national news magazine that this Committee has
received evidence that in these negotiations I knowingly left
American Prisoners of War behind. That report could only have
come from someone connected with this Committee. I know of no
such evidence. I indignantly deny any such charge. I
respectfully ask that you take prompt action to disclaim it.

SEP 01 '92 06:28 KISSINGER ASSOC

P. 5

of the prisoners and full accounting for the MIAs.
Thirty Senators and the Democratic nominee for
President were urging unilateral withdrawal without any
provision for prisoner release;

-- that they used this leverage for an agreement that
leaves no doubt about Vietnamese obligations to return
all prisoners and account for all those missing in
action;

-- that it had no knowledge of any prisoners left behind
when the agreement was signed;

-- that it would never have made an agreement had it known
any such fact;

-- that it was extremely dissatisfied with the accounting
by North Vietnam about the MIAs;

-- that it made strenuous efforts to resist violations;

-- that all the leverage available was dissipated by the
Congress so that America faced in the end the nightmare
of all negotiators: it had nothing to backup its words
except more words.

SEP 01 '92 06:48 KISSINGER ASSOC

P.1

No amount of prosecutorial artifice, no statistical game can obscure these facts. To permit the opposite impression to arise is to play politics with a national tragedy.

There is nothing unclear about the results of the negotiations. Mr. Chairman. Hanoi's obligations on POWs and MIAs were spelled out for all to see. No one has questioned the obligation for twenty years. So what exactly is the Committee staff driving at? Why is it in America's interest to hint that there may be conditions by the United States which account for the illegal Vietnamese delay in returning prisoners? Why is it in America's interest to provide an alibi for Hanoi's offenders? If they failed to return these persons, the Vietnamese Communists have never denied their obligation to return our prisoners and account for the MIAs. They have simply denied that they had any right to provide an adequate indemnity.

What has happened to this country if for months a Congressional inquiry can imply what common sense would tell any reasonable person can not be true; that any American official of whatever administration would be move heaven and earth to fight for the release of American prisoners. Since the agreement, we have had five Presidents, four Secretaries of State, several Secretaries of Defense and various Joint Chiefs of Staff. Can anyone

of the American people? Can anyone

08/31/92 SEP 01 '92 06:52 KISSINGER ASSOC

WC&P

The missing men could have died or been killed before being captured, in which event they would never have been put on the lists. Or they could have died or been killed after capture under circumstances the North Vietnamese have never been willing to admit.

But assuming that the North Vietnamese and their Laotian guerilla allies were holding prisoners they have never acknowledged, even perfect 20-20 hindsight does not suggest to me any measure that we did not take, but could have taken, with the support of American public opinion, that would have induced the disclosure of these additional prisoners or brought about their return. American public opinion would certainly have opposed a delay in the withdrawal of our forces in South Vietnam. The only forceful measure realistically available was to resume bombing North Vietnam, which we did every time the North Vietnamese seriously breached the Paris Accords, until American public opinion turned against bombing as well, and Congress forbade any use of armed forces in the region. Public opinion also turned against the inducement of economic aid, as soon as North Vietnam began breaching its agreements and our returning prisoners described the horrors of their captivity.

There is every reason for Congress to condemn the leaders of North Vietnam for breaching the Paris Peace Accords in so many ways, including their failure to account for the discrepancies between their prisoner lists and our own MIA reports. But there

SEP 01 '92 06:30 KISSINGER ASSOC

WC&P

P.8 003

August 30, 1992

Draft Statement for Dr. Kissinger

When the Paris Peace Accords were being negotiated in the winter of 1972-73, many political leaders, including Senator George McGovern, the Democratic presidential candidate, were calling for the unconditional unilateral withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam, without any enforceable North Vietnamese commitment for the concurrent or subsequent return of our Missing In Action and Prisoners of War. In our negotiations, however, we demanded and obtained express North Vietnamese promises to furnish lists of all Americans held in North Vietnam and Laos, and to return the listed prisoners in phased installments coordinated with simultaneous withdrawals of our forces from South Vietnam. We also demanded and obtained other important commitments designed to prevent the reinforcement and supply of North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam, so that the South Vietnamese would be able to defend themselves after the American forces were withdrawn. To encourage compliance with these commitments, we also held out the inducement of asking Congress to authorize economic aid to the region after peace had been established.

Unfortunately, North Vietnam flagrantly violated its commitments not to reinforce its army in South Vietnam, and over the next two years it succeeded in conquering South Vietnam. But North Vietnam did comply with its commitments to provide lists of

SEP 01 '92 06:31 KISSINGER ASSOC

P. 10

[4]

a previous ~~Administration~~ had cast their lot with us.

Decades hence somebody will write a Kafka-like play on the reversal of roles this inquiry is enacting [?]. But, Mr. Chairman, if it makes good theatre, it makes lousy and irresponsible history.

The most intense debate in the US concerned the pressure for unilateral American withdrawals. By 1972, there was a steady drumfire of Congressional and public statements urging the unilateral withdrawal of our forces. I attach at appendix A a sample and want to quote a few examples here:

-- Senator Frank Church in a July 22, 1972 interview said that "North Vietnam will never be willing to give up our prisoners until we are willing to give up the war. Hanoi then would have no further reason for keeping them once we have stopped bombing the north and once we have withdrawn the balance of our forces".

-- On October 10, the democratic nominee for President, Senator McGovern introduced his plan, if elected, immediately and unconditionally to stop all military action in Vietnam, to withdraw all US forces within 90 days and to request in return that Hanoi release all POWs and account for MIAs.

SEP 01 '92 06:32 KISSINGER ASSOC

P.115.8

8

Throughout the period, members of the peace movement here spread the word that they had been told by the North Vietnamese that setting a deadline for our withdrawal would create "favourable conditions" for the release of American prisoners of war. Thirty Senators joined them. America had been down this road before. Our predecessors had agreed to a bombing halt on the "understanding" that Hanoi would not take advantage of it. Within weeks Hanoi started an offensive that killed over 1,000 American a month.

Our Administration knew from the secret talks Hanoi's real position. They demanded that America set a deadline for withdrawal -- unilaterally independent of all other conditions. Then while American troops were being withdrawn there would be negotiations about a cease-fire, the replacement of the Saigon government and the release of our prisoners. In other words, while our negotiating position was being dismantled, the Saigon government disintegrated and, in the absence of a cease-fire, we were to talk about our prisoners under conditions of unspeakable chaos.

This we rejected.

We rejected as well the overthrow of the Saigon government both for reasons of honor and on practical grounds. There where

AUG 31 '92 13:32

[y]

9

700,000 Saigon troops, close to 500,000 Communist troops (including guerrillas). If Saigon collapsed, the residual American force would become hostage; the number of our prisoners would increase exponentially.

Mr. Chairman, is it not absurd that those who refused to abandon our Vietnamese allies should now be asked to explain why they abandoned Americans? Is it not indecent to accuse those who heard our leverage for the release of prisoners of having been struggled for the release of Americans insufficiently attentive to their fate?

Hanoi knew very well that we were prepared to set a deadline for withdrawal provided there was a cease-fire and a simultaneous release of prisoners. This position Hanoi consistently rejected.

Nevertheless, during 1972 a cascade of resolutions was introduced in the Congress urging unilateral withdrawal. Most were "sense of the Congress" resolutions, which meant they were not binding, but they clearly affected Hanoi's calculations. I am attaching at appendix B an illustrative list of [put here number] resolutions introduced in 1972. As one example, I can cite the following:

Examples of 1972 entire Senate and House resolutions, and of this committee's panel, are as follows:

* On July 24, an amendment asking for withdrawals for the release of U.S. prisoners, passed the Senate. Another amendment to get these prisoners out of the U.S. was defeated.
* An amendment requiring a cease-fire which was defeated.
* A cease-fire which was not effective in getting U.S. forces out.

AUG 01 '92 06:33 KISSINGER ASSOC

10

Some resolutions passed; others did not. Whether they
passed or not, they ~~affected~~ an ~~illustrated~~ the
following exchange with the chief North Vietnamese negotiator, Le
Duc Tho, on May 2, 1972; can serve as an example?

"LE DUC THO: I would like to quote a sentence from Senator Fulbright to show you what Americans themselves are saying.

KISSINGER: Our domestic discussions are of no concern of yours, and I understand what the Senator said.

LE DUC THO: I would like to give you the evidence. It is an American source, not our source. Senator Fulbright said on April 8 that the acts of the liberation forces in South Vietnam are in direct response to your sabotage of the Paris Conference -

KISSINGER: I have heard it before. There is no need to translate. Let's get on to the discussion.

LE DUC THO: I would like to quote -

KISSINGER: I have heard it before. Please go ahead."

SEP 01 '92 06:49 KISSINGER ASSOC

P. 11

11

Do my responses suggest excessive flexibility?

Despite all these difficulties, we negotiated an agreement which met our basic conditions stated publicly on many occasions. It provided for the release of our POWs and an accounting for the MIAs. Associated protocols established precise procedures for accomplishing these objectives. In exhausting negotiations, we separated the release of our prisoners from the release of what the North Vietnamese called "political prisoners" in the South because we thought this would provide endless pretexts for delay. The agreement established a cease-fire in place and the principle that the withdrawal of American forces would be linked directly to the phased release of our prisoners. Nor did we overthrow any allied government.

1 Before turning to implementation of the agreement, let me explain the way we went about the negotiations. Until 1972, I conducted secret talks, together with a small team from the NSC, all whom have been deposed by the Committee staff. The typical procedure was to leave on a Saturday morning for a French military base from which a French military plane took us to a private airfield near Paris, where we would arrive around midnight. After spending the night in the apartment of our then military attaché, General Walters, who acted as interpreter and advisor, we met the North Vietnamese negotiators, usually Hanoi Politburo member Le Duc Tho. After negotiating all day - and sometimes briefing the French President Pompidou - we returned to Washington by the reverse procedure of the day before.

At this stage we discussed only basic principles - usually no more than two pages.

SEP 01 '92 06:50 KISSINGER ASSOC

P.312

12

The return of POWs and accounting for MIAs was an integral part of every American proposal, always declared as non-negotiable.

After the breakthrough of October 8, 1972 I asked Ambassador Sullivan and George Aldrich, the State Department/Legal Advisor, to join the team. They, together with other experts and members of my staff, negotiated the protocols of implementation with Vietnamese technical teams.

After the agreement went into effect, the POW/MIA issue was handled by the NSC process with the Defense Department, the lead agency. As a general procedure, the Defense Department dealt with the Four Party Military Commission.

## Paris Peace Agreements

Let me now turn to implementation of the peace agreements. I will focus on 1973, the year on which the committee has concentrated, and describe what I remember of those activities in which I was personally involved.

The Paris Agreements were signed on January 23rd. Under Article 8, the parties were committed to exchanging complete POW lists on January 27 and to account for MIAs throughout Indochina. All POWs were to be released within 60 days. As I indicated at a press conference on January 24, we had been told that there were no American POWs held in Cambodia and that those held in Laos and Vietnam would be returned to us in Hanoi.

SEP 01 '92 06:51 KISSINGER ASSOC

14

that under the terms of the Agreement the release of American prisoners was unconditional. The Vietnamese got the message and the POWs were released as scheduled.

In the following week we kept up the pressure at the Vietnam Peace Conference in Paris. Representing the US there, Secretary Rogers told the press that President Nixon would take "appropriate action" if there were any delays in POW releases. In a March 2nd press conference, the President repeated publicly that POW releases could not be linked to anything other than the rate of US withdrawal.

Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese were violating the other provisions of the Agreement, in particular with massive illegal movement of troops and materiel South across the DMZ. During March, we made a number of protests to the North about these violations and about our growing concern on the accounting for MIAs. They regularly, and disingenuously, responded that they were innocent of all charges. ~~We rejected their answers, calling them in one note "an insult to our intelligence".~~

During this period, as I have reported in detail in my memoirs, I was in favor of resuming military action against the North to drive home our concern over Hanoi's repeated violations. The President felt that on balance it was better to have one more negotiating round.

SEP 01 '92 06:33 KISSINGER ASSOC

P.14.15

15

Most commentators, Congressional and/or media, opposed any effort to pressure Hanoi. To give the flavor of contemporary press commentary, I attach a far from exhaustive list as appendix C.

As the deadline for the last POW release approached, the White House issued a threat on March 25 that US troops would remain in Vietnam until all POWs in Indochina were released. All the known prisoners were released as scheduled.

Uncertainty Remains After March POW Releases; US Leverage Erodes

The last known POWs were released to us on March 28. However, we were extremely dissatisfied with the handling of the MIAs. In his address to the nation the next day, President Nixon noted that "there are still some problem areas. The provision of the agreement requiring an accounting for all missing in action in Indochina .... [has] not been complied with...".

Since we had unconfirmed reports of possible additional POWs and had not received a satisfactory accounting for our missing, our government continued to press Hanoi. However, congressional support for standing up to the North's continued violations evaporated. During this period, political figures and pundits publicly debated not whether we should retaliate for the North's blatant violations but whether we had the right to retaliate at

SEP 01 '92 06:34 KISSINGER ASSOC

AUG 31 '92 15:38

all. Let me cite just a couple of examples:

The *New York Times* editorial of April 1, 1973 stated that "The President continues to imply in dark and guarded language that he is ready to use the power of the United States to force adherence to the cease-fire terms. Nowhere in the official records of the truce is there provision for any one nation to deal with violations by its own bilateral actions."

Two days later the *Washington Post* wrote that "the Constitution does not authorize the President to bomb foreign countries at his own discretion. It does not say that, to help enforce shaky cease-fire agreements, the President is entitled to make war as he sees fit."

The *Des Moines Register* said on April 4, that" it would be a grave mistake for the United States to decide the peace violations by the other side were intolerable and jump back into combat again...The agreement calls for the United States to get out and stay out and leave the Vietnamese to settle the future of Vietnam."

Several days later the *Atlanta Journal* wrote that "the Paris peace settlement makes no provision for one of the former belligerents to have recourse to military

SEP 01 '92 06:36 KISSINGER ASSOC

P.18

[4]

17

action if any part of it should break down."

Nor did Congress offer us support for resisting Hanoi's violations. At appendix E is a sample list of Congressional resolutions debated in 1973. A couple of examples from the Spring of 1973 illustrate my point:

- On April 5, 1973 the Senate passed the Byrd Amendment, providing that there could be no aid to Hanoi without congressional approval, by 88 votes to 3.

- On May 10, the House adopted an amendment which prohibited the use of funds for military activity in Southeast Asia.

- Two weeks later, this Committee approved a similar proposal.

- On May 31, the full Senate rejected a Republican-sponsored amendment which would have made the cut-off of American military activity in Laos and Cambodia contingent upon the North Vietnamese making a good faith effort to account for MIAs.

- On June 4, the Senate approved the Case-Church amendment to cut off all funds for military operations.

SEP 01 '92 06:35 KISSINGER ASSOC

P. 17

[y]

19

face of the North's violations. His unstated message was clear: I understand what you are saying but I also know that you have no way to back up your threats. so I will ignore them.

Another exchange with Le Duc Tho will give the flavor of what we were up against.

"LE DUC THO: You have given air support to the troops of the Vietiane administration, launching encroaching operations against the regions under the control of the Pathet Lao in violation of the Agreement on Laos.

With regard to Cambodia, you have stepped up very fierce air attacks in Cambodia, and the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives are opposed to the air attacks in Cambodia by the Nixon Administration.

KISSINGER: May I recall to the Special Adviser a rule we discussed three years ago that should be enforced? You have been consistently wrong in your assessment. You will be wrong again. But other than that let us not discuss it.

LE DUC THO: Whether I was wrong or right, you are aware

20

of that."

US Continues to Press Hanoi in Summer

These negotiations resulted in a joint US-North Vietnamese
communique on June 13 which again specifically reiterated the
North's obligation to release any remaining POWs "without delay" and
it required Hanoi once again to make a full accounting for MIAs.
When the North still did not give us such an accounting, the
American government issued a lengthy protest statement on MIAs on
July 29, noting that after six months, the North had failed to
comply with the agreement and that we still had some 1300 listed
as missing. We again called upon the North to provide
information on the names we had provided. In the following months
we continued to raise with the North their violations of the
agreement and issued additional public statements about those on
September 10 and October 26.

But Mr. Chairman, I must stress that these efforts to pin
Hanoi down on our MIAs amounted to firing empty cannons. We had
no way to force their compliance with the Paris Agreement. The
domestic political debate effectively tied our hands.

In theory we had three levers available: bombing the North, aid to Hanoi, and aid to Saigon to provide an incentive to seek a peaceful resolution by depriving Hanoi of the hope for military

["SEP 01 '92 06:37 KISSINGER ASSOC", "P.20.21", "21\n\nvictory. Congress took all three levers away, ~~from our hands~~ and so did Indochina.", "On June 29, a little more than two weeks after the conclusion of the latest peace agreement and the most recent obligation to release our prisoners, the Congress prohibited all military action in, over and near Indochina, including reconnaissance flights.", "-- In August 1973 it became clear that Congress would not approve economic aid to North Vietnam.", "-- In each of the years that Saigon remained independent, Congress cut aid to it by 50%.", "-- It cut off aid to Cambodia altogether in 1975 and was in the process of being debated in Congress, ~~only 75% of its last inadequate annual grant, when South Vietnam collapsed in 1975.~~", "In these conditions, we had no bargaining position left. I had one final meeting with the North Vietnamese in December 1973.", "I remember being armed with a long list of violations to raise with them, including the fact that Hanoi had failed utterly to comply with the agreements on MIAs. As I recall the meeting, Le Duc Tho's response was even more contemptible than six months earlier. We lacked both carrot & stick and shot not week. He was a professional. He was

SEP 01 '92 06:38 KISSINGER ASSOC

P. 23

We were outraged by these blatant violations and frustrated
by our inability to respond to them. The domestic political
climate in the US and Congressional actions effectively closed
off our ability to punish the North Vietnamese violations or to
reward their compliance.
We were caught in the classic
nightmare of every statesman -- we had nothing to back up our
tough words but more words.

Mr. Chairman, like you I had the great honor of serving this
country. As I did, I was conscious of my obligations.

-- to the servicemen I visited in the infantry divisions
on three trips to Vietnam in 1965-1967;

-- to the wives of MIAs with whom I met on a number of
occasions and who never broke faith with their
government;

-- to those of my staff members who stayed with me when I
promised them that if they joined the protest they
would march with a placard, but if they stayed with the
NSC they would help end our country's divisions by
working on an agreement of which they could be proud;

-- to this country which saved me and my family from
totalitarianism.

SEP 01 '92 06:39 KISSINGER ASSOC

P. 24

24

When I received the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the
Vietnamese War, I donated all the money to a scholarship fund for
the education of children of servicemen killed or missing in
Indochina.

It never occurred to me that twenty years later I would be
sitting before a Senate Committee to explain and justify what my
colleagues and I were so proud of having achieved.

When I presented the agreement to the press on January 24,
1973 I concluded as follows:

> "...as for us at home it should be clear by now that no one
> in this war has had a monopoly of anguish and that no one in
> these debates has had a monopoly of moral insight. And now
> that at last we have achieved an agreement in which the
> United States did not prescribe the political future to its
> allies, an agreement which would preserve the dignity and
> self-respect of all the parties, together with healing the
> wounds in Indochina we can begin to heal the wounds in
> America."

Healing those wounds preoccupied me then; it has preoccupied
me since. It is still a noble objective.

AUG. 01 '92 06:37 KISSINGER ASSOC'ER CONSULTING

TO

1 203 927 0005 P.21-22

22

During 1974 and 1975, our Administration continued to press Hanoi publicly, in private messages and at the Four-Party Joint Military Team, to obey their treaty commitment to account for our MIAs. We asked the Laotian government to help. Vietnam ignored us and even suspended meetings of the Four-Party team in mid-1974 as Watergate sapped the Presidency.

Mr. Chairman, our government worked hard on the POW/MIA issue. Against the advice of critics we negotiated a tough agreement which clearly linked our troop withdrawals to the release of our POWs and a full accounting for our missing.

Almost from the first day, the North violated this and most other provisions of the Paris Agreements. They sent massive amounts of men and armor to the South, eventually they completed the military takeover of the government there. Hanoi cynically played with familles' emotions by stalling and obfuscating on our issue. While we believed all POWs were released, we continued to receive ambiguous reports about possible living Americans. We took all such reports seriously and pressed Hanoi to help resolve the confusion. But it never provided satisfactory information about our MIAs. We had to take other measures to inform ourselves, which you will want to review in closed session.

AUG 31 '92 07:03 KISSINGER ASSOC

IV MENU

PUUZ

P.15

1

August 28, 1992

2:20 pm

DRAFT

BFRC

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee:

When the Chairman called me months ago to inform me of this Committee's investigation, I told him that the Committee could perform an important service by clarifying once and for all the fate of our missing-in-action in Indochina.

Personally I have no positive proof either way with respect to this heartrending question. The Vietnamese are certainly capable of such a cynical act even though their motive would be unclear. But if any prisoners were held back, there can be only one guilty party: the Vietnamese Communists who flagrantly and unforgivably would have detained them in violation of the prisoners' fundamental human rights and Hanoi's most solemn & clear-cut agreements. If any proof of this is found by this Committee, all Americans will unite to demand redress.

Yet the investigation by the Committee staff appears to be taking a different turn.

08-28-92 AUG. 31 '92 06:58 KISSINGER ASSOC

JO HENI

lousy history.

For four years the Administration in which I served sought to end a war it inherited from its predecessors. When we came into office we found half a million Americans fighting in a region far removed from the United States. The number of soldiers was still increasing according to a schedule established by our predecessors. Casualties had risen and reached their highest level the year before we entered office. Four years later we had withdrawn all but 25,000 of the 550,000 troops we found there, Casualties dropped every year substantially, until in the last wartime year (1972) the number was only slightly higher than in the last peacetime year (1964).

During those four anguishing years we negotiated, first secretly on weekends, later in full view in day-and-night sessions, harassed by protesters, attacked in the media, criticized in countless Congressional resolutions. All of it undermined our negotiating positions. During this period I had to move out of my residence because protesters thought we were asking too much of Hanoi. At all times, we ridiculed our concept of national honor, which in our view forbade unconditional withdrawal and the betrayal of an ally.

Yet in the end we achieved the terms which we set out to obtain and which our critics had consistently told us were

TO ORDER

P. 7

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5

impossible. The Paris agreement met our principal conditions:

a) America insisted on a return of all of its prisoners and a full accounting of all the MIAs in North Korea

b) America would not overthrow the government of an allied country and turn over to the Communists tens of millions who, in reliance on America's word - given by a previous Administration, - had cast their lot with us.

In stark contrast to our objectives, the North Vietnamese made two constant demands:

a) the unilateral withdrawal of American forces.

b) the overthrow of the Saigon government.

The most intense debate in the US concerned the demand for unilateral American withdrawals. By 1972, there was a steady drumfire of Congressional and public statements urging the unilateral withdrawal of our forces. I attach at appendix A a sample and want to quote a few examples here:

08-28-92 AUG '92 07:03 KISSINGER ASSOC

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101

P.14

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As the committee knows, we signed the Paris Agreements on January 23rd. Under Article 8, the parties were committed to exchanging complete POW lists on January 27 and to account for MLAs throughout Indochina. All POWs were to be released within 60 days. As I indicated at a press conference on January 24, we had been told that there were no American POWs held in Cambodia and that those held in Laos and Vietnam would be returned to us in Hanoi.

The North Vietnamese, in what was to be a constant pattern
over the next two years, immediately began to violate the
agreement. For example, they did not hand over the POW list for
Laos until February 1 and then only after we had threatened to
withhold a message relating to post-war reconstruction.
Moreover, their list contained only 10 names, whereas our
intelligence listed many more as missing there.

We know that this situation was made worse by the Secretary of
State Rogers testified before this committee on February 8 (and
again on February 21) that we did not regard the Laos list as

R-97%

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AUG 31 '92 07:05 KISSINGER ASSOC

HUG 28 '92 08:53 212-759-0042

11

complete and noted we would continue to press for the fullest
information on the some 1300 American MIA s in all of Indochina
not on the lists provided by Hanoi. When I visited Hanoi for
negotiations in mid-February, I raised the POW and MIA issues,
presenting evidence on specific discrepancies and asking the
Vietnamese to follow up. They were evasive.

In the last week of February, our government became deeply
concerned about the POW release schedule. The North was refusing
to hand over the list of men to be freed February 27, and in
violation of the Peace Agreement, was hinting at tying their
release to the freeing of what they called "political prisoners"
in South Vietnam. This was a linkage the Peace Agreement
explicitly rejected, we rejected it again now. We reacted
strongly to the North's stalling by suspending our troop
withdrawals and mine-clearing operations. The White House
Spokesman issued a tough statement reiterating that under the
terms of the Agreement the release of American prisoners was
unconditional. The Vietnamese got the message and the POWs were
released as scheduled.

-96%

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P.1

Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese were violating the other provisions of the Agreement, in particular with massive illegal movement of troops and materiel South across the DMZ. During March, we made a number of private protests to the North about these violations and about our growing concern on the accounting for MIAs. They regularly, and disingenuously, responded that they were innocent of all charges. We rejected their answers, calling them in one note "an insult to our intelligence".

During this period, as I have reported in detail in my memoirs, I was in favor of resuming military action against the north to drive home our concern over Hanoi's repeated violations. The President felt that on balance it was better to have one more negotiating round.

Certainly most commentators, Congressional or media, opposed any effort to pressure Hanoi. To give the flavor of contemporary press commentary, I attach a far from exhaustive list as appendix C.

96%

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AUG 31 '92 07:07 KISSINGER ASSOC
L: 06:55 212-759-0042

P015

P.20

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Two days later the _Washington Post_ wrote that "the Constitution does not authorize the President to bomb foreign countries at his own discretion. It does not say that, to help enforce shaky cease-fire agreements, the President is entitled to make war as he sees fit."

The _Des Moines Register_ said on April 4, that" it would be a grave mistake for the United States to decide the peace violations by the other side were intolerable and jump back into combat again...The agreement calls for the United States to get out and stay out and leave the Vietnamese to settle the future of Vietnam."

Several days later the _Atlanta Journal_ wrote that "the Paris peace settlement makes no provision for one of the former belligerents to have recourse to military action if any part of it should break down."

Nor did Congress offer us support for existing Hanoi's violations. At appendix D is an *illustrative* list of Congressional resolutions debated in 1973. A couple of examples

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- On May 10, the House adopted an amendment which prohibited the use of funds for military activity in southeast Asia.

- On May 31, the full Senate *rejected* a Republican-sponsored amendment which would have made the cut-off of American military activity in Laos and Cambodia contingent upon the North Vietnamese making a good faith effort to account for MIAs.

- On June 4, the Senate approved the Case-Church amendment to cut off all funds for military operations in Indochina.

And so, despite our Administration's continued concern with *North Korea's* non-compliance with the provisions of the Paris Agreement, including those involving a full accounting for our

-98%

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These negotiations resulted in a joint US-North Vietnamese
communique on June 13 which again specifically reiterated the
North's commitment to release any remaining POWs "without delay".
It required Hanoi once again to make a full accounting for MIAs.
When the North still did not give us such an accounting, the
American government issued a lengthy protest statement on MIAs on
July 29, noting that after six months, the North had failed to
comply with the agreement and that we still had some 1300 listed
as missing. We again called upon the North to provide
information on the names we had provided. In the following months
we continued to raise with the North their violations of the
agreement and issued additional public statements about those on
September 10 and October 26.

In theory we had three levers available: bombing the North, aid to Hanoi, and aid to Saigon to provide an incentive to seek a peaceful resolution by depriving Hanoi of the hope for military victory. Congress had taken all three levers from our hands,

a little more time
On June 29, less than two weeks after the conclusion of the
latest peace agreement, the Congress prohibited all military

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21

-- to the servicemen I visited in the infantry divisions on those trips in Vietnam in 1965-1967;

-- to the wives of MTAs with whom I met on a number of occasions and who never broke faith with their government;

-- to those of my staff members who stayed with me when I promised them that if they joined the protest they would march with a placard, but if they stayed with the NSC they would help end our divisions by working on an agreement of which they could be proud;

When I received the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Vietnamese War, I donated all the money to a scholarship fund for the education of children of servicemen killed or missing in Indochina. If they never returned to our country twenty years later I would be sitting before a federal committee complaining & justify what my colleagues & me were to do. When I presented the agreement to the press on January 24, 1973 I concluded as follows:

"...as for us at home it should be clear by now that no one in this war has had a monopoly of anguish and that no one in these debates has had a monopoly of moral insight. And now

R-96%

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1

August 27, 1992

7:30 pm

DRAFT

SFRC

Personally I have no positive proof either way with respect to this heartrending question. The Vietnamese are certainly capable of such a cynical act even though their motive is unclear. But if any prisoners were held back, there can be only one guilty party: the Vietnamese Communists who flagrantly and unforgivably would have detained them in violation of the prisoners' fundamental human rights and Hanoi's most solemn agreements. If any proof of this is found by this Committee, all Americans will unite to demand redress.

Yet the investigation by the Committee staff appears to be taking a different turn. The implication seems to be that the

United States government knowingly and callously ~~or~~ right
colluded in keeping American prisoners behind.

Not even the Vietnamese Communists have made such an obscene
claim. They have never denied their obligation to return the
prisoners. They have simply denied that they had any.

These innuendos and the whole thrust of the investigation
that I have been able to observe are an outrage. I must
therefore begin my testimony by protesting in the strongest terms
the despicable implication that <u>any</u> American leader would so
betray his trust. Where has this country come to if for months a
Congressional inquiry can obscure what common sense would tell
any reasonable person must be true: Any American official of
whatever administration would move heaven and earth to fight for
the release of American prisoners. To suggest otherwise to focus
so much of the investigation on looking for a smoking gun of
<u>American</u> transgressions, is to play a cruel game

-- with those who fought and suffered in Vietnam with every reason to believe that their government would stand behind them;

-- with the families of the MIAs, who are entitled at least to the consolation that their government kept faith with their suffering;

-- with the American people to whom it is being suggested

[y]

3

that their leaders capped a cruel and divisive war by
abandoning prisoners.

To tear the scabs off the wounds of the Vietnam war in such
a manner is truly reckless.

For four years the Administration in which I served sought
to end a war it inherited from its predecessors. When we came
into office we found half a million Americans fighting in a
region far removed from the United States. The number of
soldiers was still increasing according to a schedule established
by our predecessors. Casualties had risen and reached their
highest level the year before we entered office. Four years
later we had withdrawn all but 25,000 of the 550,000 troops we
found there. Casualties dropped every year substantially, until
in the last wartime year (1972) the number was only slightly
higher than in the last peacetime year (1964).

During those four anguishing years we negotiated, first
secretly on weekends, later in full view in day-and-night
sessions, harassed by protesters, attacked in the media,
criticized in countless Congressional resolutions. All of it
undermined our negotiating positions. Yet in the end we achieved
the terms we set out to obtain and which our critics had
consistently told us were impossible. The Paris agreement met
our principal conditions:

4

a) America insisted on a return of all of its prisoners and a full accounting of all the MIAs.

b) America would not overthrow the government of an allied country and turn over to the Communists tens of millions who, in reliance on America's word - given by a previous Administration - had cast their lot with us.

Yet now, twenty years later, in the midst of a Presidential campaign, the staff of this committee, in innumerable interviews and a search of documents they do not understand, have created a state of mind which in numerous columns leave the following innuendos:

-- Those who rejected the pressure for unilateral withdrawal without a cease-fire and insisted on a package that preserved our leverage throughout the process of prisoner release are now accused of not having done enough.

-- Those who would not turn over our Vietnamese allies to Communist rule are accused by implication if not in words of having abandoned American prisoners.

This is shameful.

Twice during this period I had to move out of my residence

5

because protesters thought we were too exacting in our terms. At all times, many ridiculed our concept of national honor, which in our view forbade unconditional withdrawal.

Some novelist decades hence will be able to write a Kafka-like story on the reversal of roles your staff is seeking to engineer. But, Mr. Chairman, if it makes good theatre, it makes lousy history.

Staff investigators who were in grade school during the events you are examining cannot be expected to know the context in which we had to conduct our negotiations. Yet the context is key. During the negotiations there were two constant North Vietnamese demands:

b) the overthrow of the Saigon government;

The most intense debate in the US concerned the demand for American withdrawals. Members of the peace movement here spread the word that they had been told that setting a deadline for our withdrawal would create "favorable conditions" for the release of American prisoners of war. By 1972, there was a steady drumfire of Congressional and public statements urging the unilateral withdrawal of our forces. I attach at appendix A a sample and want to quote a few examples here:

6

[y]

-- Two days later, the *Los Angeles Times* editorialized that "McGovern is right in refusing to make the prisoner question an obstacle to American withdrawal from South Vietnam. In practical terms there is little the United States can do to force this issue."

7

Above all, our Administration knew from the secret talks
Hanoi's real position. They demanded that America set a deadline
for withdrawal -- unilaterally, independent of all other
conditions. Then while American troops were being withdrawn
there would be negotiations about a cease-fire, the replacement
of the Saigon government and the release of our prisoners. In
other words, while our negotiating position was being dismantled,
the Saigon government betrayed and, in the absence of a cease-
fire, we were to talk about our prisoners.

This we rejected.

We rejected as well the overthrow of the Saigon government
both for reasons of honor and on practical grounds. There where
700,000 Saigon troops, close to 500,000 Communists (including
guerrillas). If Saigon collapsed, the residual American force
would become hostage; the number of our prisoners would increase
exponentially.

Hanoi knew very well that we were prepared to set a deadline
for withdrawal _provided_ there was a cease-fire and a _simultaneous_
release of prisoners. This position Hanoi consistently rejected.

8

were "sense of the Congress" resolutions, which meant they were
not binding, but they clearly affected Hanoi's calculations. I
am attaching at appendix B an illustrative list of resolutions
introduced in 1972. For example on May 31, 1972, this Committee
approved an amendment to the military aid bill which would, among
other things, prohibit the use of funds to keep US forces in
South Vietnam after August 31 with no preconditions. The full
Senate adopted this proposal in slightly amended form on July 24.

Some resolutions passed; others did not. Whether they
passed or not, they affected our negotiating position. The
following exchange with the chief North Vietnamese negotiator, Le
Duc Tho, on May 2, 1972 can serve as an example:

[y]

9

Despite all these difficulties, we negotiated an agreement which met our basic conditions. It provided for the release of our POWs and an accounting for the MIAs. Associated protocols established precise procedures for accomplishing these objectives. In exhausting negotiations, we separated the release of our prisoners from the release of what the North Vietnamese called "political prisoners" in the South because we thought this would provide endless pretexts for delay. The agreement established a cease-fire in place and the principle that the withdrawal of American forces would be linked directly to the phased release of our prisoners. Nor did we overthrow any allied government.

Paris Peace Agreements

10

As the Committee knows, we signed the Paris Agreements on
January 23rd. Under Article 8, the parties were committed to
exchanging complete POW lists on January 27 and to account for
MIAs throughout Indochina. All POWs were to be released within
60 days. As I indicated at a press conference on January 24, we
had been told that there were no American POWs held in Cambodia
and that those held in Laos and Vietnam would be returned to us
in Hanoi.

We considered this situation unacceptable. Secretary of
State Rogers testified before this committee on February 8 (and
again on February 21) that we did not regard the Laos list as

[y]

11

complete and noted we would continue to press for the fullest
information on the some 1300 American MIAs in all of Indochina
not on the lists provided by Hanoi. When I visited Hanoi for
negotiations in mid-February, I raised the POW and MIA issues,
presenting evidence on specific discrepancies and asking the
Vietnamese to follow up. They were evasive.

In the last week of February, our government became deeply
concerned about the POW release schedule. The North was refusing
to hand over the list of men to be freed February 27, and in
violation of the Peace Agreement, was hinting at tying their
release to the freeing of what they called "political prisoners"
in South Vietnam. This was a linkage the Peace Agreement
explicitly rejected; we rejected it again now. We reacted
strongly to the North's stalling by suspending our troop
withdrawals and mine-clearing operations. The White House
spokesman issued a tough statement reiterating that under the
terms of the Agreement the release of American prisoners was
unconditional. The Vietnamese got the message and the POWs were
released as scheduled.

[y]

12

Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese were violating the other
provisions of the Agreement, in particular with massive illegal
movement of troops and materiel South across the DMZ. During
March, we made a number of private protests to the North
about these violations and about our growing concern on the
accounting for MIAs. They regularly, and disingenously,
responded that they were innocent of all charges. We rejected
their answers, calling them in one note "an insult to our
intelligence".

13

The last known POWs were released to us on March 28.
However, our intelligence services continued to receive reports,
none ever confirmed, that Americans might still be alive in
Indochina. In his address to the nation the next day, President
Nixon noted that "there are still some problem areas. The
provision of the agreement requiring an accounting for all
missing in action in Indochina .... [has] not been complied
with...".

Since we had unconfirmed reports of additional POWs and had
not received a satisfactory accounting for our missing, our
government continued to press Hanoi. However, with the American
prisoners home and our forces withdrawn, congressional support
for standing up to the North's continued violations evaporated.
During this period, political figures and pundits publicly
debated not whether we should retaliate for the North's blatant
violations but whether we had the right to retaliate at all. Let
me cite just a couple of examples:

-- On April 1, 1973 the _New York Times_ editorial stated
that "The President continues to imply in dark and
guarded language that he is ready to use the power of

14

-- Two days later the _Washington Post_ wrote that "the Constitution does not authorize the President to bomb foreign countries at his own discretion. It does not say that, to help enforce shaky cease-fire agreements, the President is entitled to make war as he sees fit."

-- The _Des Moines Register_ said on April 4, that" it would be a grave mistake for the United States to decide the peace violations by the other side were intolerable and jump back into combat again...The agreement calls for the United States to get out and stay out and leave the Vietnamese to settle the future of Vietnam."

-- Several days later the _Atlanta Journal_ wrote that "the Paris peace settlement makes no provision for one of the former belligerents to have recourse to military action if any part of it should break down."

Nor did Congress offer us support for resisting Hanoi's
violations. At appendix D is an illustrative list of
Congressional resolutions debated in 1973. A couple of examples

[y]

15

-- On April 5, 1973 the Senate passed the Byrd Amendment, providing that there could be no aid to Hanoi without congressional approval, by 88 votes to 3.

-- On May 10, the House adopted an amendment which prohibited the use of funds for military activity in southeast Asia.

-- Two weeks later, this Committee approved a similar proposal.

-- On May 31, the full Senate *rejected* a Republican-sponsored amendment which would have made the cut-off of American military activity in Laos and Cambodia contingent upon the North Vietnamese making a good faith effort to account for MIAs.

-- On June 4, the Senate approved the Case-Church amendment to cut off all funds for military operations in Indochina.

And so, despite our Administration's continued concern with Northern non-compliance with the provisions of the Paris Agreement, including those involving a full accounting for our

16

MIAs, the Congress effectively denied us both carrot and stick.

And so, Mr. Chairman, we were left with only words to fight
the North's violations. Our government issued a detailed public
statement April 20 listing all the North's violations and
specifically criticizing their failure to provide information on
US MIAs. The President instructed me to meet again with the North
Vietnamese in mid-May and to "hit them hard on MIA accounting..."

Starting on April 20, technical teams met to review
compliance with the agreement, including and especially the fate
of our prisoners. Starting in mid-May [and June], I had twelve
days of talks with the North Vietnamese. In these sessions, I
reviewed in detail the North's violations. But Hanoi sensed our
leverage was rapidly eroding and the North Vietnamese again
stonewalled. In response to my presentation about the North's
violations, their representative disdainfully read back to me
editorials and stories from the American press detailing the
political debate over whether our government had the authority to
resume military action in the face of the North's violations.
His unstated message was clear: I understand what you are saying
but I also know that you have no way to back up your threats. So
I will ignore them.

17

In theory we had three levers available: bombing the North, aid to Hanoi, and aid to Saigon to provide an incentive to seek a peaceful resolution by depriving Hanoi of the hope for military victory. Congress had taken all three levers from our hands.

On June 29, less then two weeks after the conclusion of the
latest peace agreement, the Congress prohibited all military

18

-- It cut off aid to Cambodia altogether in 1975 and was
debating a "terminal grant", only 75% of its last inadequate
annual grant, when South Vietnam collapsed in 1975.

In these conditions, we had no bargaining position left. I
had one final meeting with the North Vietnamese in December 1973.
I remember being armed with a long list of violations to raise
with them, including the fact that Hanoi had failed utterly to
comply with the agreements on MIAs. As I recall the meeting, Le
Duc Tho's response was even more contemptable than six months
earlier. We lacked both carrot & stick.

[NOTE TO HAK: We still need to put something in about 1974-76
handling of POWs/MIAs]

*

*

*

*

Mr. Chairman, our government worked hard at the POW/MIA
issue. Against the advice of critics we negotiated a tough
agreement which clearly linked our troop withdrawals to the

[y]

19

Almost from the first day, the North violated this and most
other provisions of the Paris Agreements. They sent massive
amounts of men and armor to the south. Eventually these
completed the military takeover of the government there. Hanoi
cynically played with families' emotions by stalling and
obfuscating on our POWs. While we believe all POWs were
released, we continued to receive ambivalent intelligence about
possible living Americans. We took all such reports seriously
and pressed Hanoi to help resolve the confusion. We also took
other measures to - (off page..). But it never provided
satisfactory information about our MIAs.

As I have explained today, we were outraged by these blatant
violations and frustrated by our inability to respond to them.
The domestic political climate in the US and Congressional
actions effectively closed off our ability to punish the North
Vietnamese violations or to reward their compliance. We were
caught in the classic nightmare of every statesman -- we had
nothing to back up our tough words but more words.

Mr. Chairman, in the light of this record, I resent the
libel that American prisoners were knowingly abandoned by their
government. I repeat the questions with which I started. What
has happened to the way we govern ourselves when the most

20

[y]

insulting and degrading accusations can be pursued for weeks
without any recourse? What is the smoking gun your staff is
looking for? Common courtesy would have suggested that they
start with the person who had the ultimate responsibility.
Perhaps if they had heard the account presented here they might
have saved themselves the work, and the government the money,
involved in handling this like some kind of criminal
investigation.

I am proud of what my associates and I accomplished in the
face of huge difficulties. In the end, government requires some
act of faith somewhere along the line. I would hate to think
what such great Secretaries of State like Henry Stimson, Dean
Acheson, George Marshall and John Foster Dulles [would have
thought] if a group of Congressional aides with no experience in
foreign policy had tried to reconstruct a negotiation twenty
years after the event, looking for what could only be a
dishonorable act. They would have pointed out that they would
discover everything except the intangibles that make up the
essense of a negotiation. Once upon a time an investigation
required some indication of wrong-doing. In this period, the
investigation is designed to produce proof of a wrong that cannot
even be defined.

I had the great honor of serving this country conscious of
my obligations

21

-- to those of my staff members who stayed with me when I
promised them that if they joined the protest they would
march with a placard, but if they stayed with the NSC they
would help end our divisions by working [on] an agreement
of which they could be proud;

22

that at last we have achieved an agreement in which the
United States did not prescribe the political future to its
allies, an agreement which would preserve the dignity and
self-respect of all the parties, together with healing the
wounds in Indochina we can begin to heal the wounds in
America."

So let us stop torturing ourselves. If servicemen where
left behind, there is one villain and one villain only: the
cold-hearted rulers in Hanoi. Stop providing them with an alibi.

Mr. Chairman you have said publicly that you want to help
put the issues behind us.

Opening up all these wounds of two decades ago is a funny
way of doing it.

AUG 27 '92 13:15 KISSINGER ASSOC

P.1

P.1

1

HAK: Hereafter retyped pages (newly numbered 1-9) &amp;ck on previous pages (numbered 5-18)

LORC

August 27, 1992

10:25 am

DRAFT

SFRC

Personally I have no positive proof either way in this heartrending question. But if any prisoners were held back, there can be only one guilty party: the Vietnamese Communists who flagrantly and unforgivably would have detained them in violation of the prisoners' fundamental human rights and Hanoi's most solemn agreements.

Yet the investigation by the Committee staff appears to be taking a different turn. The implication seems to be that the United States government knowingly and callously colluded in keeping American prisoners behind.

AUG 27 '92 13:16 KISSINGER ASSOC

P.3

P.3

[4]

3

Casualties dropped every year until substantially until in the last machine year 1972 the number was only slightly higher than in the last peacetime year (1964). During those four anguishing years we negotiated, first secretly on weekends, later in full view in day-and-night sessions, harassed by protesters, attacked in the media, criticized in countless Congressional resolutions. All of it undermined our negotiating positions. Yet in the end we achieved the terms we set out to obtain and which our critics had consistently told us were impossible. The Paris agreement met our principal conditions:

a) America would not overthrow the government of an allied country and turn over to the Communists tens of millions who, in reliance on America's word - given by a previous Administration - had cast their lot with us.

b) America would insist on a return of all of its prisoners and a full accounting of all the MIAs.

AUG 27 '92 13:27 KISSINGER ASSOC

P.21

"...as for us at home it should be clear by now that no one in this war has had a monopoly of anguish and that no one in these debates has had a monopoly of moral insight. And now that at last we have achieved an agreement in which the United States did not prescribe the political future to its allies, an agreement which would preserve the dignity and self-respect of all the parties, together with healing the wounds in Indochina we can begin to heal the wounds in America."

Healing those wounds preoccupied me then; it has preoccupied me since. It is still a noble objective but one which is now being threatened by the turn this investigation appears to be taking.

It is a bitter irony that those of us who strived for an honorable end to the war on terms considered by our critics to be too demanding are now accused of having been negligent with respect to America's own fighting men. Twice during that period I had to move out of my residence in the face of protesters insisting we were not sufficiently flexible.

P.22.5

5

Some novelist decades hence will be able to write a Kafka-like story on this reversal of roles. But, Mr. Chairman, if it makes good theatre, it makes lousy history.

(a) the overthrow of the Saigon government;

(b) the unilateral withdrawal of American forces.

We rejected the overthrow of the Saigon government both for reasons of honor and on practical grounds. There where 700,000 Saigon troops, close to 500,000 Communists (including guerrillas). If Saigon collapsed, the residual American force would become hostage; the number of our prisoners would increase exponentially.

The most intense debate in the US concerned the demand for American withdrawals. Members of the peace movement here spread the word that they had been told that setting a deadline for our withdrawal would create "favorable conditions" for the release of American prisoners of war. By 1972, there was a steady drumfire of Congressional and public statements urging the unilateral

AUG 27 '92 13:18 KISSINGER ASSOC

P.5

P.6

AUG 27 '92 13:28 KISSINGER ASSOC

This was rejected. Hanoi knew very well that we were prepared to set a deadline for withdrawal provided there was a cease-fire and a simultaneous release of prisoners. This position Hanoi consistently rejected.

Nevertheless, during 1972 a cascade of resolutions was
introduced in the Congress urging unilateral withdrawal. Most
were "sense of the Congress" resolutions, which meant they were
not binding, but they clearly affected Hanoi's calculations. I
am attaching at appendix B an illustrative list of resolutions
introduced in 1972. For example on May 31, 1972, this Committee
approved an amendment to the military aid bill which would, among
other things, prohibit the use of funds to keep US forces in
South Vietnam after August 31 with no preconditions. The full

[4]

8

AUG 27 '92 13:19 KISSINGER ASSOC

P.7

[Y]

9

Despite all these difficulties, we negotiated an agreement which met our basic conditions. It provided for the release of our POWs and an accounting for the MIAs. After establishing a ceasefire in place and the principle that the withdrawal of American forces would be linked directly to the phased release of our prisoners. Nor did we overthrow any allied government.

P.810

[4]

agreement. It was buttressed by implementing protocols prepared by technical teams under Ambassadors Sullivan and Porter, who I know did a meticulous job.

Paris Peace Agreements

of the parties concerned.

Let me now turn to implementation. I will focus on 1973, the year on which the committee has focused and what I remember of those activities in which I was personally involved.

AUG 27 '92 13:20 KISSINGER ASSOC

P.9.

P.11

[4]

State Rogers testified before this committee on February 8 (and again on February 21) that we did not regard the Laos list as complete and noted we would continue to press for the fullest information on the some 1300 American MIAs in all of Indochina not on the lists provided by Hanoi. When I visited Hanoi for negotiations in mid-February, I raised the POW and MIA issues, presenting evidence on specific discrepancies and asking the Vietnamese to follow up. They were evasive.

In the last week of February, our government became deeply concerned about the POW release schedule. The North was refusing to hand over the list of men to be freed February 27, and in violation of the Peace Agreement, was hinting at tying their release to the freeing of what they called "political prisoners" in South Vietnam. This was a linkage which we had explicitly rejected, and we rejected it in the Peace Agreement and rejected it again now. We reacted strongly to the North's stalling by suspending our troop withdrawals and mine-clearing operations. The White House spokesman issued a tough statement reiterating that under the terms of the Agreement the release of American prisoners was unconditional. The Vietnamese got the message and the POWs were released as scheduled.