Harriman: ...if you say it, if you talk to Churchill, I said, No, Churchill was for the maintenance of the empires.
Interviewer: Well, you might say that, might be worth saying even though you didn't hear him say it.
Interviewer: Okay?
Interviewer: Speed.
Harriman: Well, why not say, Churchill was not in sympathy with breaking up the empires.
Interviewer: Okay.
Interviewer: Well say it any way you want.
Interviewer: All right, Stan...
Interviewer: You ready, all right we're rolling now.
Harriman: Okay.
Interviewer: Governor Harriman, you were close to President Roosevelt during WWII.
Interviewer: What was his attitude toward the future of Indochina?
Harriman: Well, I talked to President Roosevelt, several, or rather, I was present when President Roosevelt talked about Indochina on several occasions.
Harriman: And one of the most dramatic was when he talked to Stalin about it at Tehran.
Harriman: He indicated that he didn't think the French should be allowed to go back in Indochina.
Harriman: And Stalin heartily approved of that.
Harriman: And then they both suggested there should be a trusteeship of the United Nations.
Harriman: Stalin didn't comment on that.
Harriman: He did, however, at Tehran, agree to the United Nations, which was a great breakthrough.
Harriman: But on other occasions he mentioned the fact that he thought the French had done nothing for the Indochinese and that they shouldn't be allowed to go back.
Harriman: In fact, he sent word to the Pentagon...Hank Byroade, Colonel Byroade who was in the Army and later Ambassador, told me that he had been a staff officer and he saw a telegram, a message, come from Roosevelt to the Army that they should not have anything to do with the surrender of the Japanese in Indochina.
Harriman: But he never left any word with the State Department so no one understood just what his ideas were.
Interviewer: What do you think uh Churchill's attitude was towards the situation in Indochina?
Harriman: Well, he didn't talk with Churchill about it because, of course, Churchill had made it very plain he wasn't for of course, breakup of the empires.
Harriman: The, uh, his uh...views wouldn't have fitted in.
Harriman: But this was an understanding between Roosevelt and Stalin.
Interviewer: You were the head of the Marshall Plan in Europe during the early 1950's, at that time we were giving aid to France, and France was fighting in Indochina, uh, were the French diverting American economic aid to Indochina?
Harriman: Well, they were diverting their aid.
Harriman: I was at Paris, '48 to the mid fifties, when we had the Korean War and I came back, as assistant, special assistant to President Truman.
Harriman: But I was quite unhappy about the fact that much of the aid that we were giving France was diverted to towards this war in Indochina, and knowing the Roosevelt position, and having accepted that as wise, I took up with Acheson who was then Secretary of State, that we should...I think it must have been '49...that we ought to slow down on helping the French, and get them to reduce their commitments there.
Harriman: And I got a word back I think one of the few rude telegrams I ever got from the State Department.
Harriman: It said your job is in Europe, not in the Far East.
Harriman: But the facts were that Acheson didn't know anything about the Far East, or very little.
Harriman: He was trying to butter up the French at that time to get them to accept the arrangement by which the Germans could enter into the defense of Europe.
Harriman: And he wanted to get their good will and he didn't want to raise this issue.
Harriman: So I was again-, against this war, on the record, as far back as '49.
Interviewer: What was President Truman's attitude towards the French war in Indochina?
Harriman: Well, immediately after the attack in Korea, he wanted to strengthen all the situations because he didn't know who was back of this, he thought the Chinese might be.
Harriman: And didn't step up but I think he accelerated the aid to the French in Indochina, and he sent a liaison officer out there to make sure that there were no difficulties but with the Chinese attacking.
Harriman: He also ordered the Seventh Fleet to see that there was no fighting either way.
Harriman: He also asked Chiang Kai Shek not to have any raids on China.
Harriman: He wanted to protect all the world's flanks against possible action on the part of China.
Interviewer: Did you approve of President Truman's decision to send an American military mission to Indochina at the time?
Harriman: Well, it wasn't a mission, it was a liaison, course it was, because we were...we were...trying to do everything we could to protect against the Chinese becoming involved in the activities.
Harriman: And it was, it had nothing to do with Indochina, it had to do with a problem that the war we were having in Korea.
Interviewer: Could you...looking back on the Eisenhower Administration's policy towards East Asia, what was your opinion of it? You were not in the administration, of course, but what was your view of it?
Harriman: Oh, I was very strongly for President Eisenhower's opposition to what the three men, Nixon, Dulles and Radford wanted to intervene, even to the point of discussing use of nuclear bombs for Dien Bien Phu.
Harriman: And Eisenhower put a stop to that.
Harriman: He had Matt Ridgeway as his advisor and Matt Ridgeway was very strongly against getting involved in the Asian continent with American troops.
Harriman: And I thought Eisenhower's decision at that time against his three, strong advisors was very wise.
Interviewer: Did you ever discuss the situation in Asia with Eisenhower?
Harriman: No, never did at all.
Interviewer: What about the move by the Eisenhower Administration and Secretary of State Dulles to install Ngo Dinh Diem as the head of the government in Saigon.
Interviewer: What did you think of that?
Harriman: Well, I don't know that he installed it, but what he did do, which I was opposed to, he took over the responsibility which the French had for South Vietnam.
Harriman: And General Ely was there and attempting to deal with the situation and we found Diem, I think he found Diem then and supported him.
Harriman: And I think General Collins made a report indicating that he thought it was not a very good thing to do.
Harriman: But Dulles went ahead anyway, and that was the start of all the trouble.
Harriman: If we hadn't intervened in South Vietnam at that time and taken political and economic and military responsibility for Diem, it would have avoided all of the difficulties in the future.
Interviewer: Well, could I ask you?
Harriman: And that was the beginning and I was opposed to it then, but when Kennedy came in, of course, he inherited the situation.
Harriman: It was quite different inheriting the situation.
Harriman: in the beginning the responsibilities for...
Interviewer: Looking back as...
Harriman: ...Saigon.
Interviewer: ...maybe as a historian, what would you, what did you think might have been the alternative to our getting involved in South Vietnam as back as 1954?
Harriman: Well, I think we could have stayed out of South...Vietnam.
Harriman: You know, Ho Chi Minh, anybody who knew history knew Ho Chi Minh was rather a rather an Asian type of Titoist.
Harriman: He didn't want to be dominated by anyone, way back in Wilson's day.
Harriman: And we had advisors with him during the war.
Harriman: They were quite friendly to America...and oh...I had gotten all that information during the war.
Harriman: And I looked uponHo Chi Minh not as a part of a, of the uh...normal Communist expansionist, but I looked upon him as a man that a...Vietnamese patriot.
Harriman: Therefore, I had no...I really didn't have any great feeling that we should get involved at that time...in Vietnam.
Harriman: Now if the French wanted to continue to support Diem or anybody else in South Vietnam that they chose, that was their affair.
Harriman: And of course, we were helping the French.
Harriman: And it was one thing to help the French and quite another thing to take direct responsibility.
Interviewer: Governor, now we're going to jump up to the period l968 that we want to do because Dan is here.
Harriman: That's right.
Interviewer: So, I'm going to jump ahead here.
Interviewer: Just hold on, till the...
Interviewer: It's good?
Interviewer: Okay.
Interviewer: All right.
Interviewer: In the spring of 1968, you became the President's chief negotiator at the peace talks in Paris.
Interviewer: What was it like negotiating with the Vietnamese?
Harriman: Well, I want to say that I was the chief negotiator, but Cy Vance was my partner and we worked together as a team.
Harriman: He was...and uh everything we did, we did together.
Harriman: And I've never had a more satisfactory relationship with him.
Harriman: But the discussions were very long, drawn out...very frustrating, it required fantastic patience.
Harriman: And there were two sets of discussions.
Harriman: Do you want me to go into the details?
Interviewer: Yeah, if you would, yeah.
Harriman: What they were like? We had the plenary sessions, which were formal.
Harriman: And they were only between the North Vietnamese representative, Xuan Thuy was his name and myself.
Harriman: I or he would start off with a statement, and each one of us would accuse the other of being the aggressor and of doing uh very uh cruel and unnecessary and uh damaging actions and then uh the other side would answer.
Harriman: Uh, we would always have a little...after one had made a speech the other side would criticize briefly what the first man had said and then the second man would make his speech and then the first man would criticize the other man.
Harriman: The South Vietnamese, oddly enough, used to criticize my criticism of his speech so it turned out he always had the last word.
Harriman: I didn't undignify myself to a point of doing that.
Harriman: So I used to say "I'll always give you the last word." These amounted to nothing...they didn't get anywhere, they were...they tried to make a little variety in them by getting news stories or stories of what some prominent man had said or some...they tried to get some senator's statement or something else from the United States and I'd try to get some statement from other international sources.
Harriman: But then we began to have tea breaks between the two speech...coffee breaks rather...and those coffee breaks Xuan Thuy and...uh...Ha Van Lau used to sit down with us and...Mr. Vance and myself and I think Phil Habib and we'd talk and then the military would get together and our staffs would get together.
Harriman: There would be three or four different groups, would get together and drink coffee and we'd talk for about half an hour.
Harriman: And that began to loosen our personal relationships.
Harriman: We'd...
Harriman: we'd...talk about things of special interest.
Harriman: And the first real change came when Cy Vance arranged with Ha Van Lau to have private talks.
Harriman: And they went to a privately arranged house, sometimes it was theirs, sometimes it was ours, and began to talk about things in a private way.
Harriman: But I want to say, that from the standpoint of Washington, we had a great deal of difficulty in...I think it was the 8th of June, 1968...
Harriman: there was a telegram that came from Chairman Kosygin, to President Roosevelt...
Harriman: President Johnson, and he said, this was from the phrases he used, I and my colleagues believe, and have reason to believe that if you stop all the bombing, that productive talks will, will follow.
Harriman: Now, we came, Cy and I came back from Bobby Kennedy's funeral which was, I think it was June 10th, or thereabouts, so we were in Washington when this telegram was being considered.
Harriman: We had sent word from Paris that we would like to discuss it.
Harriman: And we talked it over with Rusk and with Clark Clifford who was then Secretary of Defense, and we strongly urged that it be accepted.
Harriman: We thought it was a very good idea that the Russians should be involved.
Harriman: And I had found in other dealings, in earlier dealings, Russians were anxious to see the war stop.
Harriman: But there was a meeting with the President.
Harriman: And uh...the...Dean Rusk took the point of view that we didn't know, and I think after talking to the President, what we didn't know enough of what was involved.
Harriman: And...and Clark Clifford indicated that he thought we should accept it.
Harriman: Vance and I indicated we ought to accept it.
Harriman: But the President decided we ought to have more information and Abe Fortas who was then a...Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, I think, and he was there at the meeting.
Harriman: He and Dean Rusk drafted a telegram which you couldn't talk exception to because it asked sensible questions.
Harriman: Although we were very much opposed to it there was nothing we could do.
Harriman: So these, this telegram was sent and Kosygin obviously took it as an insult that he didn't accept their word and that opportunity was lost.
Harriman: And I think that there was a loss of a very, very great opportunity.
Harriman: I think if we had stopped all the bombing at that time, we would have gotten down to talks and I think the relationship which we were beginning to establish at that time, we might have made some very real progress...in uh...as was shown by our later talks.
Harriman: Then um...
Interviewer: Excuse me, do you recall anything in detail of that telegram that was sent back to Kosygin.
Harriman: I'm telling you what the detail was; the detail was asking questions.
Harriman: What did he mean? What did he think would happen? Just...that was the general talk about it.
Harriman: The carefully drawn legalistic question...it was legalistic in its relationship, not in terms of the human emotions that was back of all this.
Harriman: Then there was a lull in the fighting in the end of June, early July.
Harriman: And Vance and I sent a telegram in July again, I guess it was in July, saying that we thought that the signal had been given us that they were ready to stop, reduce the fighting because of the lull in the fighting.
Harriman: And we urged that we stop all the bombing.
Harriman: That was just before the Democratic uh National Committee meeting...Of course if that had happened there would be no row if either of those things had been accepted but there would have been no row in the Democratic Party and Hubert would have been acclaimed and undoubtedly, I think, would have won the election.
Harriman: But Johnson was afraid he would be considered a political move, and I think turned it down because of political moves.
Harriman: So that those two opportunities were lost.
Harriman: But then we went on with our talks and there was a senior member of the Politburo from Hanoi who came there called Le Duc Tho.
Harriman: He was fifth or sixth in rank in the hierarchy.
Harriman: He joined our talks and we began to have, Vance and I, began to have private talks with him and Xuan Thuy, and uh, in September, I think September 7th.
Harriman: He used to have one or two meetings a week in the plenary sessions.
Harriman: Well, he used to have about two or three in the beginning and then we reduced it to one and then we had a couple of private talks.
Harriman: And nobody knew of those private talks.
Harriman: And they never got in the press.
Harriman: We sealed them.
Harriman: They were...some of them were very long; one of them lasted nine hours.
Harriman: But we found, finally found, a breakthrough in our relationship by these private talks.
Harriman: The...
Harriman: uh, you remember, the uh North Vietnamese were demanding and wouldn’t change [incomprehensible] any iota that the United States should stop the bombing and all other hostile acts against North Vietnam unconditionally.
Harriman: But then he indicated that uh, first they said it would and later on, as I've explained, they put the word "will...sit...prompt" and some language I've forgotten the detail.
Harriman: I think they used it several different times, the language but prompt and serious talks would be undertaken.
Harriman: And we said, Now we're not going to talk about the unconditional stopping of United States bombing and all action against you but we have a right to know the circumstances and the conditions which would be...which would surround these talks.
Harriman: The, and uh, I think I used one time, productive talks, serious talks.
Harriman: And we wanted to get a def...we wanted to...we asked and they accepted the fact that it was reasonable for us to ask the question of what the...circumstances would be...what the position in the situation would be in order to have these talks...uh productive and serious.
Harriman: And we, we took the strong position of authority from Washington, there should be no fighting around and through the DMZ and no attacks on Saigon and the big cities.
Harriman: We didn't think there could be productive talks when there were conversations of that kind and we also insisted that the government of South Vietnam be present.
Interviewer: Governor, as you saw it at the time, what was the real policy of the United States? What did we really want in Vietnam?
Harriman: Well, at the end there, the President wanted to get the talks started.
Harriman: And...in these October talks he showed every disposition of wanting to get the talks started.
Harriman: And...we, we uh...we had some very long talks.
Harriman: He wanted to talk of every detail and we felt we had an agreement, and then they wanted to have an agreed upon minute, and it was very difficult for us to have an agreed upon minute, and we'd argue.
Interviewer: What was our...
Harriman: But, but, but, but...
Interviewer: What was our objective?
Harriman: But we got, but what?
Interviewer: What was our ultimate objective? Did we want to have...
Harriman: We wanted to have...what was, what we insisted on, is that there should be no fighting in and around the DM, or across the DMZ, or no attacks on the big cities and that the government of South Vietnam should be present at the talks.
Harriman: And they agreed to that.
Harriman: And finally, but, on the other hand the South Vietnamese government, President Thieu began to make trouble.
Harriman: And it seemed very obvious that he was trying to delay the talks...the end of the bombing...of these talks until after the election.
Harriman: It was...the story is, Madame Chennault, the...who was the Ambassador here, sent word to Saigon that they would have a better chance to have the war to continue with Nixon than with Humphrey.
Harriman: And they'd unsatisfied...
Harriman: they delayed us in...and put in roadblocks.
Harriman: And so finally President Johnson on the 31st of December, ordered the stopping of all the bombing to take effect the 1st of November.
Harriman: And this was done without the approval of Diem, of...Thieu, and that was the...that was so close to the election however, that it had some effect but nothing like the effect that it would have had, if we made the...come to that agreement I'm sure we probably would've a week earlier, if it hadn't been for the intervention of the South Vietnamese.
Harriman: And he could have sat down then and had serious talks now, or after that when Nixon was elected.
Harriman: We had all this difficulty about the shape of the table.
Harriman: I'll tell you about that if you want to.
Interviewer: Go ahead.
Harriman: Well, the whole argument over the period had been what was the relationship between the, the, the four parties which would take part in final discussions, peace discussions.
Harriman: That would be the GVN, ourselves, the South Vietnamese government on our side, and the NLF, the National Liberation Front, which was the VC, as we called them on the other.
Harriman: So we got the idea of calling it "our side, your side." They wanted to call it a four party conference because they wanted to build up the NLF.
Harriman: And uh the uh, we didn't want to recognize them as a government and...government talks, we couldn't recognize them as a government and we had a great deal of difficulty.
Harriman: We wanted to have a two sided table, and they wanted to have a round table.
Harriman: And the South Vietnamese were very strong for this.
Harriman: We, we were ready to accept a round table on the basis that uh, people sitting at the table didn't have any position.
Harriman: But they said if it was a round table each one were equal, and they wouldn't stand for it.
Harriman: So we had endless discussion about whether it should be a round table or an oval table, or a two-sided table.
Harriman: And the issue was the recognition of the status of the NLF.
Harriman: People made fun of it, but it wasn't.
Harriman: It was a major issue, particularly for the South Vietnamese.
Harriman: And the interesting thing was that the Russian Embassy helped us all through this period, helped us get some of these decisions.
Harriman: There was a...deputy to the Ambassador, by the name of Oberenko , a great big, square uh Russian, and he really dealt very toughly with the North Vietnamese when he thought they were making a mistake.
Harriman: And he was the one who finally broke the ice.
Harriman: We...we agreed on having uh two half round tables with a space between them and the question was how wide that space would be.
Harriman: And...I think someone suggested that it be big enough for Mr. Oberenko to go through.
Harriman: But Mr. Oberenko was a great big fellow, so it was quite a little space.
Harriman: And then there were two tables to be opposite each other...these open spaces with papers on it, so as to make it took as little as possible as a division.
Harriman: But on that basis we agreed, and it was on that basis we left it for the Nixon administration in January to take over, with an agreement reached that the, these four parties should start peace negotiations, and, but we never had any talks at that time because I think in that period the South Vietnamese were stalling.
Harriman: And part of their urge to make this fuss about this table was to, to delay the NL action until the Nixon Administration took over.
Harriman: So we never had a serious talk, we never were able to get down to it.
Harriman: I was naturally, and so was Cy, very keen to find out what their attitude was, and as I've explained other questions, we had some inkling of some of their thoughts.
Interviewer: Just to go back to a question I asked before, in your mind, what did President Johnson want? Did he want to have, was he willing to have a neutral South Vietnam or what was his ultimate objective?
Harriman: We never knew, we never discussed that but he was ready to have...
Interviewer: Excuse me, when you say...
Harriman: ...have a settlement and I'm , I'm satisfied that...that he...everyone realized to, that there had to be some sort of a neutral Laos but as I've told you in answer to other questions, there was indication that the North Vietnamese would have accepted the DMZ and uh given South Vietnam a chance to develop itself.
Harriman: I know in Algeria where they had quite a big delegation, the North Vietnamese, the Algerians told me that they spoke of the fact that there was no hurry in the merging of the North and the South.
Harriman: The...the...that might take them five years...ten years to happen.
Harriman: No one quite knows.
Harriman: As far as I was concerned I wanted to see the South Vietnamese people have a chance, to have a political chance.
Harriman: They weren't being able to, the military situation wasn't satisfactory and I wanted to see them have a political chance, so I was rather for the...
Interviewer: What...?
Harriman: ...personally for a neutral Laos.
Harriman: I've, I've told you in so many of the questions you've asked me before about the different indications that I'd had in this situation...so...if this these questions have been answered before.
Interviewer: What did you, how did you find the Vietnamese as people, when you were, in these private sessions, as individuals what kind of impression did they make on you?
Harriman: Well, they were human beings, very tough, very determined.
Harriman: They wanted to be very independent.
Harriman: As I've told you, the Russians wanted to see the war over.
Harriman: And the Chinese wanted to see it continue.
Harriman: They were...they were under some influence from the Chinese but they wanted to be independent of the Chinese, they wanted to be independent of everybody.
Harriman: Ho Chi Minh is the closest thing to an Asian type of Titoist as existed.
Harriman: And...he, he wanted to be independent.
Harriman: Now, we got talking about all their problems, and all sorts of things.
Harriman: They got very interested in the kinds of things that we would bring up like the miracle rice and miracle wheat which would grow very much more.
Harriman: And I said if we could only get to peace we could work together for this, how much better it would be to work together for peaceful.
Harriman: And they were human beings.
Harriman: They wanted to see their country develop.
Harriman: But they were very strong Communists very strong in the development of...of...the life of, of North Vietnam independently of Chinese domination.
Interviewer: Governor, before the Peace Talks started in Paris, you engaged in various Peace missions for the Johnson Administration, which was the one you considered the most serious?
Harriman: Well, I think one of the most serious in the attempts to get the Peace negotiation going, was, was that undertaken by the Romanians in 1967.
Harriman: I had gone to Pakistan for the opening of one of the great dams on the Indus River and I came back and stopped and saw Tito and then I saw, went to Romania.
Harriman: I went there because the Prime Minister of Romania, Mr. Maurer, had been to Hanoi and wanted to find out what he had to say.
Harriman: They treated me very well.
Harriman: They gave me a private house to live in, and my party, and we had a couple of days of real solid talks.
Harriman: And there was a deputy uh foreign minister who really took a lot of, Macovescu was his name, he took very special interest in this.
Harriman: I saw, incidentally, Mr. Ceausescu, who was the...who gave me quite a scolding over the war.
Harriman: He felt we were absolutely wrong in the war, but was ready to help, help us get out.
Harriman: And they sent Macovescu to Hanoi twice.
Harriman: The sent him once to find out about the situation and then he came to see us, see me in Washington, and really got down to December, 1967 and uh...well, he came first, earlier than that, in November I think and then went back and he was one of the best negotiators I've ever dealt with.
Harriman: He was very fair and very straight.
Harriman: He told me the difficulties as well as the good points.
Harriman: And he was one of those who carried a message that they had changed the words "he stopped all the bombing, or rather hostilities...discussions...might take place to, discussions will take place." But he was not successful because we did not stop the bombing and unfortunately while he was there there was some heavy bombing and he had to admit he was not able to get an agreement.
Harriman: But I think he did a lot of good, and I think his work there contributed.
Harriman: He was one of the most useful of those who negotiated in persuading them that they ought to start talks.
Harriman: And I think he may well have had some influence on the...Hanoi to accept the Johnson proposal which he made in that famous speech in March when he...when he...announced that he wasn't going to run for the Presidency.
Harriman: Said he would stop the bombing in the northern part and only limit it to the bombing of the neck...I didn't think they'd accept that.
Harriman: But they did accept that.
Harriman: So, I'm very grateful to him for that...I was very grateful for Romanians for that and of course, as I've explained before I was very grateful to the Poles for what they did.
Interviewer: Governor, when one looks back on that whole period of your search for a settlement for peace in Vietnam, sometimes there were periods when you were negotiating and when stopping the bombing was crucial to the negotiations, and yet, the bombing was not stopped.
Interviewer: Was there a lack of coordination here, in the administration in Washington?
Harriman: Well, that gets into...that gets into one of the other questions which you've already asked me...
Interviewer: I'm sorry...
Harriman: I'm sorry, that question gets into one of the other questions you've...you've already asked me.
Interviewer: Well, I just want...
Harriman: That...
Harriman: that gets into the Marigold question.
Interviewer: Oh, I see, okay.
Interviewer: Do you want to go back and...
Harriman: I'd thought we'd agreed to...I'd thought you'd ask a question about Humphrey.
Interviewer: Oh, yeah, okay, let's ask that one.
Interviewer: Do you think Hubert Humphrey would have withdrawn from Vietnam, had he been elected?
Harriman: I'm absolutely certain that he would've.
Harriman: I remember making a...a...talk in Atlanta...on the television...and he followed me...I was down there making a speech...and we were both on the local television...and I said I was satisfied that Humphrey would've appointed either Ball or Clark...as Secretary of State...would've gotten out of...both of them were opposed to the war...would've gotten out of the war.
Harriman: And he said I was..
Harriman: I was...the [incomprehensible]...He'd made up his mind he was going to appoint Clark Clifford.
Harriman: And you know Clark Clifford was very firm and definite.
Harriman: And he was going to ask Cy Vance to be Secretary of Defense and leave me in Paris.
Harriman: And the three of us were determined to get out.
Harriman: I think we could've had a responsible settlement when we had 500,000 troops.
Harriman: I thought the idea...would develop that we could make a settlement after we'd taken all of our troops out, just didn't make any sense.
Harriman: And as you know...Nixon Administration continued the war for three years.
Harriman: Forty percent of our men killed were killed under that period...and we tried to make a settlement after we supposedly had Vietnamized the war.
Harriman: The time to have made the settlement was when we had the 500,000 troops there.
Harriman: And, and I'm satisfied we could've made a deal at some time...and I know that Clark was determined to get out and Humphrey told me that he picked him because of his skill and determination to get out of the war.
Harriman: So, there's no question in my mind that Humphrey would’ve gotten out of the war...in '69...He would have been there on some basis, on what basis, I can't tell.
Harriman: I always wanted to...I never spoke about an honorable settlement 'cause there was no honor in the situation but I wanted to, wanted to see a responsible settlement which I personally thought was some sort of a...a neutral South Vietnam, independent for a period of years, and then we would have to leave it to the future to decide what...what...what happened.
Harriman: The important thing was to give the, the uh people we'd been supporting a political opportunity.
Harriman: They hadn't had a military...we were going to take away the military operation because it was not successful, but give them a political opportunity.
Interviewer: Did President Johnson resent Humphrey's attitude toward the war?
Harriman: Well, I think he did, But Humphrey was rather cautious during the campaign...rather more cautious than I'd hoped he would be...uh, I was thinking about resigning and coming back and trying to help him but then when George Ball resigned I thought I was more use in Paris which I think showed it was...we could, we could've stopped the bombing and started the negotiations which we could've done, if we'd had some cooperation from them...South Vietnamese government.
Harriman: But Johnson was always...remember...Salt Lake Speech which was rather mild.
Harriman: He was always afraid that Humphrey would uh, would uh say something which was adverse to the position which he had taken.
Harriman: And...there in the camp...in the...remember he forced the vote in the convention in August, 1968.
Harriman: There had been an agreement reached I was told by the chairman of the rules committee...of the of the...platform committee...that there had been agreement reached for a compromise which had the initials DR, Dean Rusk, obviously.
Harriman: Johnson wouldn't take that, he wanted to have a strong resolution and that's what upset the whole campaign.
Harriman: Remember, it was put to a vote and he got 60 percent support but there was 40 percent opposition.
Harriman: Of course, that's what beat Humphrey...If Johnson had accepted this compromise resolution...which...which...had been accepted by all the leaders, why...he would have been swamped through...Remember Humphrey was very much...in the polls...very much ahead before the convention and then he was behind afterwards.
Harriman: But he began to pick up again.
Harriman: Remember he wasn't beaten by very much, so that...the Vietnamese War was the, was the key to it.
Harriman: Unfortunately, Humphrey was in the position...he needed the money from Texas which Johnson controlled.
Harriman: Money was very hard to get and he didn't want to have Johnson come out against him...
Harriman: I don't know what Johnson's feelings were.
Harriman: He had very great emotion about...
Harriman: about the war...but I've told you about his feelings about the war and about the Great Society.
Harriman: It was a great tragedy that that Johnson got involved in this war because his Great Society program was one of the finest programs of any President has presented.
Interviewer: I wonder if you could go back and elaborate, because you haven't spoken on the cram, camera about what you thought Johnson's attitudes towards the war were.
Harriman: Well, we've covered that by a good many of the questions that we've already discussed but summing it up, my belief was that he, his principle interest in life was the Great Society.
Harriman: And he'd been in an admirer of President Johnson, of President Roosevelt, and he wanted to complete the unfinished business of the New Deal and develop some of his own ideas in making our country great and develop...and all of the programs for the...that were so necessary.
Harriman: The Civil Rights program, the education program, he was most proud of, and so forth.
Harriman: But he'd inherited this war and unfortunately...he didn't know how to handle it.
Harriman: He didn't know much about it, he hadn't had much to do with it.
Harriman: And he was advised by some of his friends that we were in this situation and no President's ever lost a war, you can't afford to lose a war...
Harriman: And then he had a divided group of advisors within this administration.
Harriman: So he was an unhappy man with this and it's a great tragedy that he got involved in this war.
Harriman: He wanted to stop it and yet he wanted to...to achieve the objectives of giving the South Vietnamese their protection and he wanted to get out with honor.
Interviewer: Governor, lets go back and pick up from the earlier questions...
Harriman: Yes.
Interviewer: ...and get back in chronology.
Harriman: By the way have either of you people anything to say about what I've said so far?
Interviewer: No.
Interviewer: Could we cut now...change tapes?
Interviewer: Okay.
Interviewer: Give you a break.
Interviewer: We're just going to change the tape.