What was the mood in the American delegation when the Paris talks began in May ’68 and how did that evolve, could you also get into the fuss about the table later?

Well, when we first arrived in eh Paris in May of 1968, the mood, of course, was rather euphoric one. The...ah...Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese had said that they’d be willing to enter into talks with us and we, all of us on the delegation, thought that that meant that we would move rather quickly into meaningful, substantive negotiations. In fact...ah...we all went and stayed in hotel rooms rather than renting apartments or finding other kinds of long-term accommodation. It didn’t occur to any of us at the time that five or six years later there would still be a delegation in Paris...ah......still going over very much of the same ground. So, I would say that when we first arrived there was an atmosphere of heightened expectation, of early progress.

Then, of course, as...ah...the talks...ah...settled in to a rather routine procedure...ah...and ...ah...we had weekly meetings where rather routine statements were exchanged by either side, we realized that we were in for something that would be considerably longer than we had originally expected.

Now, as regards towards...ah...the end of that period in 1968...ah...when we reached agreement on the terms of a halt of the bombing of North Vietnam, this opened the way to the next phase of the negotiations, which was negotiations which would also involve the Saigon government and the so called National Liberation Front of the south, and this led to the very tricky question of how...ah...the South Vietnamese parties would be seated at the table, because, of course, we recognized the Saigon government as a legitimate government of South Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese, of course, advanced the the position that the National Liberation Front was the rightful representative of the South Vietnamese people, so we had the very difficult issue of how to seat these various parties around the table, so that what, on the surface, seemed like a very...ah...superficial, and perhaps even frivolous issue to the American people and the world public opinion as a whole...ah...about the question of the shape of the table, it, in fact...ah...dealt with the very, very important question of how these parties would be represented at the talks.

How did Nixon and Kissinger view Vietnam in the framework of American relations with the Soviet Union in China? Was it, was Vietnam a single issue or was it seen in as part of the larger international issue?

Nixon and Kissinger viewed the Vietnam question principally, at least as it seemed to those of us...ah...working on these negotiations, as a serious problem that had to be dealt with in light of the presence of 539,000 American soldiers...ah...being stationed in Vietnam at the time that they came into office. The basic point that they made repeatedly was that...ah...they arrived in office in 1969 and found 539,000 U.S. troops stationed in that country and no plan to reach an early end to their involvement. So, I would say that that was the overriding concern of the administration with respect to Vietnam as they came into office.

And they, therefore, placed great emphasis on the so called Vietnamization program which was one of increasing the ability of the Vietnamese army itself to take on an added burden for its defense so that we could diminish our own direct military role in Vietnam.

Could you describe Kissinger’s secret meetings with Le Duc Tho, the ones that you attended? Where did they meet? What was the atmosphere like and how were the negotiations conducted, and what impression do you think, what impression did Le Duc Tho make on you and how did he get along with Kissinger? I mean some, give us some anecdote color of those meetings you attended?

We had a number of ah... During the course of the negotiations in which I was involved ah Dr. Kissinger had a number of secret meetings with his Vietnamese counterparts. Ah...Le Duc Tho was the principal counterpart of Dr. Kissinger and we met quite frequently in...ah...a...so called safe house...ah...out in the communist, one of the communist suburbs of Paris which was very near the compound of the North Vietnamese delegation.

We met as I recall it in a rather modest house, modest sort of Tudor house with the very small negotiating table in it, with the green felt ah on top of it, perhaps enough room for two people to sit on each ah on each side of the table perha—at the most enough room for eight people altogether. We would always take a little tea break after one side or the other had, had presented its views. On other occasions we met in some ki—in a location that perhaps our side had found. In fact, I remember one time being responsible for, for finding a safe house on behalf of...ah...the United States side and if I remember correctly the key consideration was whether the safe house had two underground garages so that we could park our cars inconspicuously under there.

Describe some of the way the negotiations were conducted? In fact, were they negotiations? How did it work? What was the conversation like in...?

The negotiations with Vietnam, with the North Vietnamese about a settlement of the conflict there from 1968 perhaps all the way until 1972...ah...one could say were very stereotyped and were not negotiations in the classic sense of the word. There wasn’t the kind of give and take that you would have in a labor negotiation or a business negotiation in the United States, or for that matter even a more normal international negotiation between governments.

They tended both in public and even in private, I should say, to follow a very set pattern. One side or the other would make a prepared statement and then the other side would reply with a prepared statement and then we might adjourn for a break and have ah tea and some refreshments and then there would be a little bit of give and take.

But, since so little progress was being made and since, until the latter part of 1972, the prospects of any settlement whatsoever seemed so remote. They were not negotiations as you and I would normally think of them.

What kind of impression did Le Duc Tho make on you? What kind of a person was he?

Le Duc Tho is, of course, a a very important, was then and remains today a very important person in the Vietnamese political hierarchy and ah it was very clear that he was the person on the North Vietnamese delegation who was able to speak authoritatively for Hanoi. He was a straightforward, rather serious man...ah...but ah not completely without humor and able to...ah...laugh at a good joke.

One of the things that impressed me about Le Duc Tho was that when he wanted to make a point...ah with particular emphasis that he frequently read statements from his own handwritten text. If I remember one thing...ah...better than anything else about Le Duc Tho was that when he really got into something that he personally wanted to convey his own interest in, he worked from one of these little children’s notebooks that he had himself handwritten his own personal statement in which is, of course, very much unlike our own style of operating from cleanly typed drafts that have been done over and over again.

Were these were these secret talks real or were they just a sideshow to the fact that the United States would withdraw its troops?

The talks...ah which took place from 1968 until they reached their conclusion in in 19...ah...73 went through, you might say, several phases. In the first...ah...ah...phase, they were rather stereotyped and they were not they were not real in in the sense that they were advancing us towards any...ah closer, more rapid conclusions...ah of of the war.

I think that from the middle of 1972 onwards, that is, in the summer of 1972 until the treaty was finally culminated...ah...in its signature in January of 1973, the talks were...were very real, indeed.

I want to rephrase the question.

A number of people at the time and subsequently frequently raised the question as to how could one really consider what was going on in Paris a negotiation. At the very same time that the Unites States...ah was withdrawing its forces from Vietnam and thereby giving up what people considered to be a leverage in the negotiation. Now, this really poses a very...ah important, it’s an important question and poses an important dilemma.

Ah...One of the principal preoccupations of the administration was that...ah...the number of American forces in Vietnam be reduced...ah so that the issue not be one of such political controversy in our own country.

Ah secondly, there was a strong desire to build up the South Vietnamese capability to defend themselves because our ultimate objective was that even if a negotiated settlement could be, could not be reached, that South Vietnam would be left in an adequate position to defend itself. So, we felt that there was no danger in pursuing this policy of steady withdrawals from South Vietnam while at the same time building up the South Vietnamese capability to defend themselves.

Some people at the time also asked well, then, what was the purpose of the negotiation itself? Well, the purpose of the negotiation itself was to find some kind of end to the fighting and to find a more enduring basis...ah for the South Vietnamese government to be able to...ah exist as a political entity in in the future and that was sought during the course of the negotiations but regrettably very little progress was made until 1972 because Hanoi insisted as a precondition for any kind of negotiated settlement that we replace the leadership of the South Vietnamese government as a precondition for a settlement, and this was...ah one condition that was simply totally unacceptable to the Nixon Administration.

What, could you talk, address the question of the American condition that the North Vietnamese troops had been withdrawn in the South?

Well, the American condition during...ah during the course of the negotiation, the principal...ah concern of the United States government, in addition to pursuing...ah withdrawals and the Vietnamization program, was to obtain...ah...a cease-fire in ah Vietnam and in Laos and in Cambodia as well, and to ensure the survival of the administration in Saigon. Those were the, the principal objectives. Can we cut for a moment?

Yeah. Sure.

One of the really...ah interesting questions with respect to the course of the negotiations and the course of the war was...ah how it related to our emerging China policy and the steps taken towards normalization of relations...

Okay go ahead, with this... Start one more time. How did Nixon’s China policy fit the Vietnam policy? Could you just readdress that?

During the time of these negotiations, of course, President Nixon made his famous opening to the People’s Republic of China and began the process of normalization of relations. Now, that step was, of course, taken...ah...on its own merits and in relation to...ah...global strategy, the question of the Soviet threat and China emerging from its own isolation.

But, it did, I’m convinced, have an impact on the Vietnamese thinking. I think they were very concerned by our move towards China...ah... They had always...ah have had shown at that time an underlying preoccupation with Sino-Soviet differences and you may recall that the Vietnamese were in the forefront of the communist parties of the world who kept trying to patch up Sino-Soviet differences because they saw serious implications in their ability to get even-handed support from both China and the Soviet Union in their ability to prosecute the war against...ah...United States involvement in South Vietnam, if relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China warmed up...ah...too much.

What about the implications of the Sino-Soviet split as far as American policy was concerned? You mentioned there was a misjudgment about this?

Well...ah...the Vietnamese were rather concerned by our warming up to China because they saw, they seemed to have seen an...a...a...a...an opportunity for the United States to play one side off against...ah the other and in retrospect...ah...I my personal feeling is that we did not...ah...so...we were not sufficiently aware of the implications of the Sino-Soviet split on our Vietnam strategy and in retrospect I think that we had a lot more freedom of maneuver than we realized. I remember at the time we used to debate whether the Chinese would...ah...continue to...ah...ah...almost acquiesce in some of the actions that we were taking with respect to Vietnam or at least they certainly weren’t protesting too loudly and they were proceeding with normalization despite the fact of some of the things, steps that we were taking in Vietnam and we weren’t too sure how long that would last and in retrospect I think it’s fair to say that...ahm...it would have lasted indefinitely...ah...given...ah...the fact that...ah...so much progress has taken in place Sino-American relations.

In March of 1972, the Vietnamese launched a major offensive against South Vietnam throwing division across...ah...the...ah demilitarized zone and...ah...severely ah threatening of the Northern part of the country. Now, this situation posed the administration with a number of very serious problems. The first, of course, was the situation in in South Vietnam itself and the grave jeopardy caused to...ah...South Vietnam as a result of the offensive.

The second...ah serious consideration and serious difficulty was that plans were...ah underway...ah for a summit between President Nixon and Chairman Brezhnev of the Soviet Union and it was inconceivable to...ah...ah...the administration that...ah...ah...a summit of this nature could be underway at the same time as one of the Soviet Union’s allies was overrunning or seeking to overrun one of our own.

It was against this background that...ah...we went to Paris in in early May, 1972 for a last ditch negotiating session with Le Duc Tho to seek to impress upon him the gravity of the situation and try to intimate to him some of the consequences that his country might face if they continued on their present course. That was a very sober meeting, a very curt meeting, if you will, and ah...both sides ah stated their position in very firm terms and Le Duc Tho ...ah...was...ah...very...ah...very intransigent and showed absolutely no flexibility whatsoever in his position and we returned...ah...to Washington after that negotiation, negotiation session, knowing that...ahm...the prospects of...ah...any negotiated outcome in the short term were very, very dim, indeed.

May...

This negotiating meeting...ah...and...ah our return to Washington set the stage for the the next series of events in the drama and it was, indeed, in terms of our policy towards Vietnam and the Soviet Union as well, a very dramatic situation. It set the stage for President Nixon’s decision taken finally on the 8th of May, 1972, to mine Hai Phong Harbor--ah--and resume...ah...heavy scale bombing of of North Vietnam.

Now, that...ah...decision...ah...made over...ah...the preceding weekend and in the wake of ah the Vietnamese intransigence involved...ah...a very, very difficult and complicated calculation. As I said, first of all, it was inconceivable to the president that he could go to Moscow...ah while...ah...a Soviet surrogate was...ah...overrunning one of our allies with impunity. And the second calculation, of course, had to be what effect this action that we would take against Vietnam...might have...

I was...

Start one more time. Go ahead...

I was preparing...ah...on a...on Friday afternoon, May 5th to go to New York for a week and to visit my family. Ah...a rest was long overdue. I’d been working rather hard on this question of...ah...dealing with the North Vietnamese Invasion, and felt I had to get away for a while.

And just as I was reaching for my raincoat, about six o’clock in the evening, I received a call to come to the White House Situation Room. And I went over there...ah...with foreboding that...ah...this would mean...ah another ruined weekend, which had become the...ah ah customary practice on a National Security Council anyway.

And found...ah...the deputy national security advisor, General Haig, sitting there with...ah a group of our closest collaborators on the NSC, and General Haig told us that the President had decided and it was a 98 percent certain decision, that in light of the Vietnamese invasion, and the unsuccessful negotiating session the previous...ah......earlier in the week, that we would be mining Hai Phong and bombing...ah...and bombing North...resuming the bombing of North Vietnam...ah...at an early date. So we had a feverish week and making the necessary preparations and justifications, and...ah...for this, and preparing the President’s...ah...speech of the 8th of May, as well as preparing for the National Security Council meeting that was to take place ah immediately preceding the announcement of his decision.

I personally ...ah...felt...ah...at the time time, that...ah...under the circumstances this was a...ah justified and even desirable decision. I thought it was going to be effective because...ah...Vietnam was so dependent on seaborne supplies...ah for its ability to continue prosecuting the war. So for my part personally, I was one of the supporters...ah...of the decision and felt that it would...ah...help speed...ah hasten, the day when we could bring the war to a negotiated conclusion. And I believe that the action, in fact, did have an effect on the Vietnamese negotiating position in subsequent months...

What happened, ah, describe what happened when you went to Moscow and attended the meeting on Vietnam with Nixon and Brezhnev, and so forth.

Well, we did....ahmm...when we went to Moscow the principal purpose of the, of the sessions between the President and the Soviet leadership were, of course ...ah...matters related to...ah...ah Soviet/U.S. bilateral relations, and...ah...as well...ah...the question of...ah...the limitation of central strategy armaments—the signing of the so called SALT I Agreement. I was brought along as a Vietnam advisor in the anticipation that Vietnam might come up at least...ah...once during that summit.

We did have, in fact, a very interesting and useful four hour discussion with the top Soviet leadership on Vietnam...at Chairman Brezhnev’s dacha outside of...ah...Moscow at which ...ah...on the Soviet side only Chairman Brezhnev and...ah...Prime Minister Kosygin and President Podgorny and an interpreter attended, and on our side there were only...ah...four of us—the President, Dr. Kissinger, and...ah...two of their assistants.

I remember the meeting perhaps,...ah...especially well because Winston Lord and I, the two staffers who were supposed to attend the meeting, missed the car to the dacha, and...ah...we thought that we were going to....ah...miss the entire meeting, but when we got out to the dacha, it turned out, ah, that they hadn’t missed us at all, because Mr. Brezhnev was...ah...showing President Nixon the hydrofoil, ah...the hydrofoil boat that he had given him as a gift. But the meeting itself on Vietnam was essentially a...ah...diatribe by the...ah...Soviet side about how we couldn’t do this to one of their socialist friends, and ah...each of the...ah...three Soviet interlocutors felt compelled to make a long...ah...speech. But it was very short on concrete details or any concrete proposals as to how...ah...the war might be settled.

And I left the meeting with the distinct impression that the Soviets were making many of their remarks...ah...for the record, and that...ah...they certainly were not going to let this issue impede a successful conclusion of the summit.

Could you describe what Kissinger’s concerns that the bombing and mining could not be sustained—and were you worried personally that he was in a rush to get a settlement?

I think that, ah....there was...ah...concern amongst...ah...our leadership at the time that...ah...the war, or at least our involvement in it, had to come to some kind of conclusion...uh...by the end of the first term of...ah...of...of President Nixon.

There was this sentiment that...ah even though we shouldn’t appear overeager for a settlement or into too much of a hurry that it would be, ah an enormous political problem if the administration had to go into the second term with this ah Vietnam albatross still around their necks. So there was a great pressure combined with the fact of an election campaign, a sentiment that something ought to be done to get matters settled...ah...by the time of the election, or at least before...ah...the ah...assumption...the beginning of the second term.

Could you describe some of the pressures? Was the pressure coming from Congress at this stage?

Ah...the the pressures...ah...I think...ah...to...to...can we cut for a second, cause I’ve gotten lost.

The...the pressures we were under to reach a conclusion, I think were several fold. The fist was simply the pressure of trying to reach some clear-cut conclusion to our involvement by the end of the President’s first term. And I think that was a very important consideration for the leadership at the White House at that time.

The next pressure was the pressure of diminishing...ah...the United States...ah...involvement...ah as we had been doing with our withdrawal program. And I think that we had begun to really contain that pressure. I don’t think that the draft was any longer an issue because we were phasing into a voluntary...ah...voluntary...ah... military system.

But there was...ah...nonetheless...ah...there remained the pressure from the Congress and from a significant elements of a Democratic-dominated Congress to bring our involvement in the Vietnam...ah conflict to an early, the earliest possible conclusion.

And that was en ever-present pressure. There were pressures to cut off...ah...funds. There were pressures to limit the amount of funds that we could have. These were pressures that were designed basically to restrain our flexibility. So that was a factor that had to be constantly taken into account as we worked towards some kind of a settlement...

POW’s...

As regards...ah...with respect to prisoners of war, there was a group...ah...of...of...there were the families of the prisoners of war who had formed an organization, and quite naturally conveyed their concerns with respect to...ah...their loved ones to the executive branch and to the Congress. But...ah...on the whole I would say that they were not a negative pressure force because they were very...ah...for the most part, very emphatic in their view that whatever settlement was reached...ah...it should not cut corners...ah...simply for the sake of getting our prisoners back, and the prisoner of war families were very emphatic that they, as much as anybody else, wanted an honorable settlement.

Could you, hmm, I wanna get in here to the reaction of Saigon, Saigon government prior to the October agreement, and could you describe your visits to Saigon with Haig and Kissinger, and how Thieu reacted, and what the atmosphere was like in Saigon as this process was going on.

Well, the...um...the visits...ah...during the course of the negotiation we, of course, took...ah...a...number of trips to Saigon to keep...ah...general...ah...President Thieu informed of the progress of the negotiations. And my, my personal feeling...ah...which...ah...dates...ah... back all the way to 1968 and the earlier negotiations about a bombing halt is that we were never as informative...ah...to the Vietnamese as we might have been about either the negotiating process or...ah...what we ultimately had in mind. And though...ah...we...we did have good atmosphere in our talks with President Thieu when we went out there, I think that if we had invested a little bit more time in consulting with him in the earlier stages, we might not have run into the kinds of difficulties that we did in October of 1972.

Let’s go and sit over...

The...ah...real breakthrough in the negotiations came in October of 19...72 in Paris. We met with the Vietnamese delegation—Dr. Kissinger met with Le Duc Tho at the...ah...another Vietnamese safe house. This time in a different...ah...location.

And Le Duc Tho produced...ah...and I remember this rather vividly...he pulled the proposal—a proposal out of his own...ah...pocket. And...ah...handed it over to...ah... Doctor...Kissinger, and...noting that...ah...he said ...ah... “You’re...ah...anxious to end this, aren’t you—you’re in a hurry aren’t you?” And, ah...we of course nodded rather...

Sorry, let's cut.

The real breakthrough in the negotiations came in October of 1972, and we met, Dr. Kissinger met with Le Duc Tho in Paris...in the Vietnamese...ah...in a Vietnamese safe house. And...ah...Le Duc Tho...I remember this rather vividly, took...ah...the proposal out of his pocket, he handed it over to our side, he said, “I’m sure you’re in a hurry to bring...ah...the war to a conclusion.”

And we nodded. And he said, “Well, here is a planned comprehensive plan to...ah...to end the war and restore peace in Vietnam.” We, of course, were rather excited by this document, because it was the first time that a proposal had been put to us in the framework of an actual agreement—it wasn’t a five point plan, or a four point plan, or a three point proposal. It was an actual text or a treaty to end the war.

And we, of course, immediately took a break to go outdoors in...ah...in the garden there of that safe house and consult together and have an opportunity to read...ah the agreement, and read the draft and at least form some preliminary impression.

And Dr. Kissinger’s immediate reaction was that, um...this...ah...document really did...ah perhaps contain the seeds of a breakthrough. So that when we went back into the room...we told Le Duc Tho that...ah...this...ah... document looked rather promising to us but that we...ah...needed some time to study it, and we would want to go back to our...ah...offices in Paris and study the proposal a bit and get back to him the following day with a response. So we adjourned the meeting that day...ah...streaked back to...ah...the Embassy residence in Paris where we had also set up our offices. And Dr. Kissinger had us...ah...sit up virtually the entire night...ah...to draft was, in effect, a counter proposal to the...ah...Vietnamese document.

And...ah both in the Vietnamese document and in our counter proposal, you could say there were the following basic ingredients, and I would say that the principal concession on the part of the Vietnamese was that in their proposal they no longer insisted that as a condition for cease-fire, or for any kind of...ah settlement including a return of our prisoners of war, they no longer insisted that...ah President Thieu his government step down. That was...ah...the principal concession that they were bringing to the negotiation...

For our part...ah...I think that the...ah...principal element that we brought to it was that we were prepared to...ah...settle for a cease-fire in place, and the return of our prisoners of war in exchange for the removal of our military...ah...forces.

And...ah...after we tabled the counter proposal, which...ah...certainly in principal did not differ that significantly from the document Le Duc Tho had given us ah the previous day. We spent the next couple of days rather frantically negotiating back and forth about minor details.

So that by the 11th of October we, in fact, had a...document, which, with only two or three minor exceptions, was the document that we finally...ah signed...ah...with the North Vietnamese in January of the following year.

Now, accompanying...ah...this negotiating process...ah...was a rather elaborate timetable that Dr. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho worked out, which...ah...would involve us going to Saigon after...ah...we had worked out the text of the agreement—getting Saigon’s approval, and then going to Hanoi on the 24th of October, if my memory serves me correctly, to initial the agreement and then the cease-fire would come into place...ah...on the 1st of November of 1972. Several days before our Presidential elections.

Could you discuss the issue of the, hmm, the American concession to let the issue of the North Vietnamese troop withdrawal sort of fade away.

The question of American...

The question of troop withdrawals, of North Vietnamese troop withdrawals from South Vietnam, had been had figured very prominently in the U.S...ah...position in the earlier years. But during the course of the Nixon administration it is my impression that more and more our thinking was gravitating towards the idea of a cease-fire in place.

And during President Nixon’s own speech at the time that he...ah announced that we were resuming our bombing of North Vietnam and mining of Hai Phong. There was no reference to the withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces from...ah...South Vietnam.

So that in October, when we got down to discussing the final...ah...text of an actual agreement, the question of...ah...Vietnamese troop withdrawal ah, simply was not a significant issue. More significant was the question of getting a cease-fire in place.

Did Kissinger tell you or did you raise the question of North Vietnamese withdrawals with him? Do you remember the story where he says, “Well, if we insist on it we’ll never get an agreement.”

Ah...On the question of troop withdrawals, this was...ah...much more of a concern of the Saigon government than within our own delegation. And I do not believe that the Saigon government was sufficiently aware of the evolution of our own...ah thinking in this regard. And this is the reason why, when we went to Saigon after those fateful negotiating sessions with the North Vietnamese, that they raise the issue of...ah...ah...North Vietnamese troop withdrawal, and asked why that had not been dealt with in our document.

And...ah...they insisted...ah...that we go back to the Vietnamese and raise this issue. Now, most of us on the delegation knew that this would not likely...ah...do any good. And would not likely meet with any success on the part of the North Vietnamese. But...ah...there was an obligation after it was decided to postpone going through with final agreement to raise this among a number of other matters that we agreed to raise on behalf of the Saigon government.

But, in my own opinion this was done pretty much for the form and pretty much ah to show Saigon that we had raised those issues with Hanoi, but in fact we knew that...ah...the prospects of getting anything more than a few minor cosmetic changes in the agreement were very remote if we were going to get any agreement at all.

When you went to, you were along on the mission to the trip to see Thieu to brief him on the October agreement—what was he like, what was the atmosphere in the palace in Saigon when you got there?

The atmosphere in Saigon when we brought to Saigon the draft of the treaty that we had negotiated...ah...with the North Vietnamese was very, very tense and very unpleasant.

And this I ascribed to the fact that it came pretty much as a complete surprise to the South Vietnamese. They had been briefed in very general terms in the preceding weeks and months. But no one had ever been so explicit as to show them...ah...significant drafts of treaty language. And now here we were arriving in October of 1972 with a complete treaty to end...ah...the war in Vietnam, which had a direct...ah...bearing—in fact, an almost total bearing on their...ah...existence as a state in the future.

And we were asking them to sign on the dotted line. So the atmosphere was very tense and President Thieu reacted very badly...ah...to the draft agreement. And...ah...I think felt...ah...felt cornered. He wasn’t certain he knew what to do about it. But...ah...the one thing he was sure of was that he wanted to find a way to delay.

And I think that was President Thieu’s major objective—is to get delay...ah...in the hope...ah...that...ah...by stalling for time he could get us to focus on some of his...ah serious concerns.

Now, uhm, did you discuss tow things which...felt concern ahum...

I think it would be

Uh start one more time, hold on everybody sit down. Okay, action, don't look at me.

I think it would be very unfair to blame President Thieu alone for the delay in concluding agreement. As I said earlier, he had not been previously familiar with the text. It severely impacted on the fate of his own country and he wanted time to reflect on the provisions of the agreement and also wanted an opportunity to perhaps secure some changes in it.

So, in effect, what Thieu did was to ask for time. Under these circumstances, President Nixon and Dr. Kissinger felt that they had no choice but to delay the timetable that had been tentatively agreed earlier with the North Vietnamese and therein lies the explanation...ah...for the delay in concluding the agreement.

Now, a number of people have frequently asked well, if that was the case...ah...then why did...ah... Dr. Kissinger...ah...come out with his...ah...famous statement at the end of October in 1972...ah...to the effect that peace was at hand and my explanation of that occurrence has always been...ah...my feeling that Dr. Kissinger wanted to reassure...ah...the North...ah... Vietnamese that we, in fact, intended as soon as we could to go through with the agreement essentially in the form which it had been agreed, because, for a moment put yourself in the North Vietnamese shoes.

They had gone through this entire negotiating process, they had reached agreement with us. They had even begun giving instructions to their cadre to prepare for a cease-fire, and some of their cadre had, in fact, exposed themselves to the South Vietnamese security forces...ah...at the time that they thought the cease-fire was to go into effect.

So, some of the North Vietnamese leaders might have begun to think that they were, they had been the victims of the biggest con job in history and that we had simply led them down the garden path of a negotiating process...ah...sufficiently...ah...close to our own elections and then we’re going to ah welsh on the deal. Against that kind of...ah...background, Dr. Kissinger’s statement to the effect that peace was at hand, I always construed to mean a reassurance to the Vietnamese that we were very close to an agreement and that we would do our best to conclude one.

And, as an earnest of that...ahh...sentiment and approach ahh you will recall that we immediately proceeded to resume negotiations with the North Vietnamese within literally days after President Nixon had been elected...ah...for his second term.

And, I can think of no more convincing...ah...symbol that you were interested...ah...in concluding than the fact that we went back to the negotiating table so soon...ah...after the election.

And, we had this very frustrating three week, three or four week period of negotiations over Thanksgiving and approaching Christmas where we were unable to conclude the final details...ah ...of our agreement and Le Duc Tho on the last day we met in December with Dr. Kissinger had his people raise an even larger number of objections to the final text of the agreement than he had raised in any of the pre...immediately preceding negotiating sessions. And, he...ah...told us that he had to go back to Hanoi and consult with his leadership before he could proceed any farther in the talks.

Now, I have always felt that Le Duc Tho’s reason for doing this was that Hanoi may have been by that time...ah...begun to have real second thoughts about whether they wanted to go through with the deal.

First of all, Saigon had been strengthened by the fact of rolling up a number of these Viet Cong and North Vietnamese cadre during that abortive cease-fire phase. And, secondly, in order to reassure Saigon, we had launched a major...ah... resupply program called Operation Enhance Plus where we provided several billion additional dollars of military equipment to the Saigon government, in order to ensure their ability to cope with the terms of the agreement once it were eventually signed.

So, it...if in the Politburo in Hanoi it had been a close decision in the first place to enter into this agreement, perhaps, after the developments of October and November they were having real second thoughts and I took the various objections that Le Duc Tho raised...ah...to the agreement to mean that they wanted to have...ah...a careful review of the situation before they...ah...went any further, and that was the setting as we moved into mid December, 1972.

And, what was the purpose of the Christmas bombing? How did it come about and what did it achieve?

Now, Le Duc Tho went back to to Hanoi and ah he had raised ah these number of additional objections to language in the treaty, and I believe there was a considerable concern...ah...within our government at the highest level; the president, and Dr. Kissinger and others, that Hanoi, in fact, would not go through with the agreement, or might come back with even...ah...further changes of their own which would make the agreement eve...even more difficult for Saigon to accept.

So, the Christmas bombing which was a decision to which I was not personally privy prior to...ah...when it was made, but when it was made and when the bombing began to take place...ah...I reached the conclusion that it was designed to ensure...ah...that Hanoi and to bring them to...ah...conclude and conclude swiftly on a basis of terms which had...ah...been previously acceptable to them.

That is to say, to conclude the...ah...along the terms that we had essentially negotiation in late in October.

But if you ended up with the agreement that you in January that you had in October, what did really, what was the bombing all about?

There are those who question the utility of having bombed Hanoi at all during that Christmas period because they ask well why...why bomb Hanoi into...ah...concluding an agreement that they themselves...ah...were prepared to conclude in October and as I’ve explained I think that they were having serious second thoughts and I think that without that bombing they could well have come back with new and unacceptable terms. Or, they could have suspended negotiations for an indefinite period. They may have decided to...ah...simply think about this matter for a number of months, so that the bombing, I would judge had the effect of...ah...of convincing them that it was in their own interest to conclude the deal swiftly, and, in fact, that...ah...seems to be the effect that it had.

Do you think the bombing was also calculated (a) to reassure Saigon and (b) as a warning to Hanoi that that any violation to cease-fire in the future would be, would be would trigger new bombing? That Nixon would not hesitate to intervene again?

Some people have suggested that the bombing may have been...ahh...also viewed as a signal...ah...to Hanoi that, if there were any subsequent violations, we wouldn’t hesitate to use the bombing and it may have been designed...ah also some have speculated to reassure Saigon, and I think there may be an element of truth to both of these propositions, but my own personal conviction is that the principal purpose of the bombing was to convince Hanoi to conclude the deal rapidly and...ah...not engage in any further delaying tactics.

Did you expect the cease-fire to hold? And, why, what was your view when the cease-fire took place? Did you think it would last?

The cease-fire provisions in the agreement were not very explicit. The agreement provided for the establishment of a Joint Military Commission...ah...which would work out some of these details and I felt then and I have felt since that ah insufficient attention was paid to the kinds of detail...ah...that should have been incorporated right into the Paris Agreement itself.

So, on the basis of...ah...the inadequacy of those cease-fire provisions alone I was very apprehensive that the cease-fire would break down because, as you know, the Vietnamese, just like the Soviets and...ah...some of...ah...their other friends...ah...are real sticklers for language and, if ah...if ah...the provisions aren’t built right into a written agreement, they won’t feel any obligation to carry them out.

Why couldn’t Nixon keep his pledge to intervene? He made a pledge he would intervene if the cease-fire broke down. Why was he unable to keep that pledge?

My own personal involvement in the Vietnam negotiations ended with the signing of the treaty on in January of 1973, and...ah...I...I have often wondered, subsequently, why we were unable to...ah...respond to the flagrant violations to the agreement which ah which began almost the day the...

Ahh...Saigon, Saigon’s objections...ah...ah...to the treaty that were so apparent to us in October, of course...ah... persisted...ah...over time, but I think that there a number of developments that caused them to be...ah...at least... ah...somewhat more confident in their own ability to cope with the provisions of the agreement. The first was our program to significantly enhance their own...ah...military capabilities by sending them...ah...ah...several billion dollars of additional military equipment on an emergency basis.

I think secondly it was simply a rather natural psychological...ah...ah...phenomenon of human nature, if you will. They had time to reflect on the provisions of the agreement. Then I would add that Saigon also got the clear picture that even thought we weren’t prepared to go through with the agreement in October in light of their objections that...ah...the very fact that we had resumed negotiations almost immediately after...ah...President Nixon’s...ah...re-election must have conveyed a rather convincing signal to them that we were basically not going to be deterred from going through with the agreement. I have a feeling that Saigon may have hoped that after the election President Nixon would just drop the whole thing.

But...ah...when we went back to Paris in November of 1972 that must have convinced them that we we really were serious about going through with the agreement. And, then, finally, when we went to...ah...Saigon with...ah...General Haig in January of 1973 to bring the final terms to the Saigon government, we made it quite clear that...ah... this time...ah...we really planned to go through with signing the agreement whether they intended...ah...to...to join us or not.

But, I would say the atmosphere at that time was much more...ah...was not nearly so confused and...ahhh...hysterical as it had been in October of 1972 at which time, as I described earlier President Thieu was in a really very, very confused state. In January of 1973 I think he had had time to think it through to...ah...ah... make his own plans and to gauge American attitudes, and I think although the atmosphere was sober...ah...Saigon was, nonetheless, prepared to do it. One interesting wrinkle was that President Thieu did not commit himself explicitly during the course of General Haig’s trip to Saigon when we asked him whether he would have a representative in Paris to sign the agreement...ah...he didn’t answer us right away. We left Saigon not absolutely certain but we simply, we subsequently got a message from President Thieu saying that his representative would be in Paris. He never even said in his message that the representative would sign the agreement but, of course, when, when it finally came down to that, his representative did sign the agreement.

Do you think that Nixon could have got he settlement he got in ’73 ah four years earlier or three years earlier? If so, how?

People always ask, it’s one of the perhaps most persistent questions about that period, whether we could have gotten the same deal in 1968 or ’69 that we ended up getting in 1973.

And, I must say that I think that the decision to mine...ah...Hai Phong and resume the bombing of North Vietnam and to show that...ah...we were prepared to apply an intensified level of military force against Vietnam at the same time that we were proceeding to improve relations with both the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China were...ah...really the convincing elements in the situation and I do not think that Hanoi would have been prepared any earlier than 1972 to make the fundamental concession of leaving the South Vietnamese apparatus in power...ah...that they finally made in October of 1972.

I have one question about Cam—why the cease-fire was not achieved in Cambodia. I wonder if you could tell your anecdote about Le Duc Tho saying he had no control over it...?

Our hope, of course, had been in these negotiations to get a cease-fire throughout Indochina and, in fact, that was in the president’s May 8th statement when we mined Hai Phong and...ah...resumed the bombing and we, in fact, did some work with...ah...Vietnamese delegations about getting a cease-fire in Laos and we got a rather shaky cease fire...ah...for that matter in Laos.

But...ah...and we also pressed the idea of getting a Ca—a cease-fire in Cambodia, but Le Duc Tho, when we raised this subject with him...ah...repeatedly replied that he simply did not control the communist, the Khmer Rouge...ahh...in Cambodia and I must say that those of us on the staff of Dr. Kissinger’s delegation expressed substantial skepticism about that. We...we told Dr. Kissinger we didn’t understand how he could possibly believe Le Duc Tho in this regard, and, of course, it turned out in subsequent years as we all learned that Hanoi did not have the kind of control over the Khmer Rouge that it would have liked to, and that, in fact...ah...there may have been...ah... considerable truth to...ah...what Le Duc Tho was telling us with respect to their lack of control over the Khmer Rouge.

One last point, and this is your personal view. Do you think it was a mistake to sign the cease-fire agreement? What theory would you...?

I have been asked a number of times whether I think it was a mistake to sign the cease-fire agreement and have always replied that I believe we could have gotten a somewhat better deal for Saigon in exactly the same amount of time.

In other words, I’m personally fully prepared to acknowledge that we had to make an agreement, that there were political imperatives in the United States and elsewhere that required that the Nixon Administration not go into it second term with this problem hanging around its neck.

But I feel that...ah...we could have probably gotten a better deal...ahh...in the same time frame and I think that perhaps the real problem was we were in a bit too mu—much of a rush...rush during those three or four days in October of ’72 and if we had simply taken that text that Le Duc Tho had given us and brought it back to Washington, perhaps, for a week’s study, that’s all I would say, just an added week of sober reflection by our government back here in Washington, we might have gotten a better deal within exactly the same time frame.

Very good. Cut.