339. Transcript of a Telephone Conversation Between the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Moorer) and the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)1
1001—Secure Telecon/Outgoing—Dr Kissinger—Sat, 1/27/73
CJCS—Have you got a minute? I’ve got four things I’d like to discuss with you. First, the airlift from Hanoi to Saigon. That’s all set up. We have asked Bill Sullivan for information concerning communications and air corridors, etc. The planes are standing by that will go all right as soon as we can get the times as to where they want the planes there. As you know, there is an advance group from Hanoi to Saigon in a NVN plane coming down on Sunday.2 My understanding now is that this might probably take place Monday. In any event we are ready to go at any time.
HAK—Good, fine.
CJCS—As soon as we can get the information from Sullivan which will permit them to file the flight plan and they’ll just be standing by and be ready to go at any time. We have enough aircraft to effect the lift. We have asked them for names and baggage problems and things of that kind, but it’s all set.
HAK—Good, excellent.
CJCS—The next thing is the subject of Minesweeping. As you know, we are sailing today 4 MSOs. I thought that would be useful to show “good faith” and the first action they’ll take, of course, is to sweep the areas that we are proposing to anchor our own ships that will conduct the actual minesweeping and that’ll take a little time. They have had some back and forth in Paris between our boy and the NVN and Sullivan has been giving him guidance and the same old problem, they want us to give them all the information we can but they refuse to give us any information so far. Sullivan and those people are meeting at 0830, Sunday morning on this subject. We have followed your instruction all along with a view towards making certain we don’t remove all the leverage before we get all our PWs back.
HAK—Our view, too, we just want to show some little activity.
CJCS—They are showing activity and this is what I think I would like to get your view on is this proposal because I think that pretty soon [Page 1178] the productivity of a technical discussion in Paris between our people and those over there are going to run out and what I would think the best plan is to suggest to Sullivan and get his reaction for is at first we would use the officer who actually is going to be in command of the operation and let him meet with the NVN commander either in Saigon or, for that matter, at the anchorage where we would anchor our ships to go up North and to go into the details of priority and what the NVN have been doing too because the Protocol does require them to do as much as they can, too and they refuse to tell us how many mines they have swept, what they have done thus far, what their capability is, etc.
HAK—I agree but Sullivan is coming back anyway on Monday so he is out of it.
CJCS—What I would do then is to use Woodward although he wouldn’t go into detail on the mining because I understand the FPMC will confine their activity to SVN and I would simply use him as a contact man with the NVN to link up McCauley and their Commander and that’s the only real way we can get this set up and go over the overall program and I’d propose to Bill if you think it is all right?
HAK—That’s fine, you can tell him we discussed it and I agree.
CJCS—We are all set. We know that Sullivan told them that we would be at top level of effort in 30 days. We are going to beat that by a few days, but I think it is good to have some…
HAK—You don’t have to beat it by much.
CJCS—Just three days or so. I sent those initial deployments of 4 MSOs from Subic and 3 from Hawaii to show “good faith” and it’s kind of a cosmetic move.
HAK—I think that is very helpful.
CJCS—So we will go ahead along those lines if it is all right with you. New subject—Cambodia. When there is this period of time between the Ceasefire tonight and the time that Lon Nol may see fit to make his announcement,3 therefore we would be conducting air operations in Cambodia during that interim period. We would be conducting them in accordance with the present rules. The present rules permit, in general, the use of B52s East of the Mekong by the people down there if they are going to strike West of the Mekong, generally speaking, then they have to come back into Washington to get permission and that’s the current rules. We could leave it that way until Lon Nol makes his statement. Then, after Lon Nol makes his statement, we will let Swank and Vogt work out what kind of support they would give the Cambodians in the event they were subjected to a large-scale offensive attack. [Page 1179] Otherwise, if there was no activity on the ground operations we would continue to stand down during the duration of Lon Nol’s Stand-down.
HAK—That’s fine, let me talk about Laos for a minute.
CJCS—That was the next subject I was going to bring up.
HAK—I got a cable in from Godley saying that the B52s are limited to 14 sorties and that he had been lead to believe by Haig that it might go on up to 30.
CJCS—Let me tell you what happened here. It’s the same old problem. I sent a message up to Laird but he cut it down to 15. I talked to Vogt last night and told him to move on up any way as Richardson is going to come in on Tuesday and we said “approximately” 15 so he is going to 21 at first and I’ll gradually work up to the 30 as soon as Laird gets out of here, frankly, it will be the next day and I think rather than get into a big flail I told Vogt to use 21 and this is an interpretation of approximately 15 and the next day we’ll move on up to 30. It is the same old story that I have been struggling with for 4 years, I send a message up to Laird and he cuts it down. If I would, as a matter of fact, put it up to 60 he would probably have cut it down to 30. But that is what the problem is.
HAK—Can we avoid putting out the numbers?
CJCS—I think that I’ll talk to him about that procedure for years and years though.
HAK—Can’t we say now that during under the new conditions we are just not going to do it on a daily basis any more?
CJCS—We can do that, I’ll talk to the PAO people about it and see if we can’t set up that kind of guidance.
HAK—Just that after the Ceasefire we are not putting it out on a daily basis.
CJCS—You probably saw that article by Tammie Arbuckle quoting Godley as to what he was going to wipe out?4
HAK—Godley’s got to shut up.
CJCS—He’s just making a problem for us.
HAK—I’m going to get him under control.
CJCS—That’s exactly what happened. I understand you loud and clear at the WSAG.5
HAK—How many are you going to be putting in there?
[Page 1180]CJCS—We’ve been averaging 9–12 in the last week or so. You’ve got to bear in mind that as we approached the Ceasefire we must have in the last 48 hours put in all our effort with the exception of 9 in Laos all effort gone into SVN in order to curtail their offensive.
HAK—Is there Tay Ninh?
CJCS—Not that I know of. They made some attacks but haven’t [taken] it to our knowledge. They are surrounding several places since they have instructed their people to do it and they have a pretty good fight going in MR 4 around Saigon. As you know, they also put some mortars into Danang. I don’t think that Tay Ninh has been taken but I’ll check that again. Point I was making all of our air is going into SVN during this 48 hours immediately preceding the Ceasefire. When it goes into effect at 1900 tonight then, of course we can put air into Laos and it’ll pick up significantly.
HAK—Okay, but we want it up to 30 very quickly and we’ll give a direct order to the Secretary.
CJCS—That would be helpful.
HAK—I don’t know whether it is worth it. I’ll just call Murphy.
CJCS—Why don’t you tell him to work…
HAK—I’ll talk to Murphy that Haig, on the President’s instructions, promised him at least 30 sorties.
CJCS—We’ll work up to it gradually; but Murphy was over there and heard what I heard.
HAK—You are producing too many Peacenik Admirals!
CJCS—I am not one of them. I just heard from MACV about that report concerning Tay Ninh and it is erroneous and it has not been taken.
HAK—Only way we can get a ceasefire in the other countries, is to strike the “b’Jesus out of them.”
CJCS—I understand. I am not the problem.
HAK—We will take it up to 30 and we’ll take it up higher if necessary.
CJCS—That’s fine, that suits me. Have them sitting there with nothing to do.
HAK—You’ve got the targets?
CJCS—Vogt has gone up to Vientiane with Godley and they have worked out all the strategic targets which is namely Boum Long, interdiction of Routes 13 and 7, Saravane area and down to Pakse.
HAK—21 tonight, you just go to 30 tomorrow night and I am going to have word over to Murphy well before then.
CJCS—Let me just check this now, the next schedule is 21, that is for the 28th, the day after the Ceasefire which are being double-targeted, every one of those airplanes with 7 cells to go on 14 [Page 1181] targets. So we don’t want to just dump this stuff up there, we are (I’ve talked to Vogt last night) he has been to Vientiane and has talked to Godley and everybody is in agreement and in accord out there and are sure as to what ought to be done.
HAK—So we are going to give you … I am going to tell Murphy we want to be to 30 by tomorrow.
CJCS—All right, that’ll be by the 29th.
HAK—Out there.
CJCS—On the 28th we’ll do 21 and go to 30 on the 29th.6
HAK—We’ll take the heat.
CJCS—I don’t mind taking the heat but he just changes my messages all the time.
HAK—You have any other problems that I can help you with? We don’t want to draw down Thailand or the B52s after the Ceasefire, if you want to make a recommendation cutting down on the carriers, you can.
CJCS—Exactly what I am preparing to do.
HAK—We don’t want to do anything for 3 or 4 months other than the carriers.
CJCS—I understand it this has been very helpful, Henry, thank you and that is the way I’m going to do it.
- Source: National Archives, RG 218, Records of the Chairman, Moorer Diary, July 1970–July 1974. Top Secret.↩
- January 28.↩
- Lon Nol declared a unilateral cease-fire on January 28. (“Lon Nol Orders Army to Cease Fire,” The New York Times, January 29, 1973, p. 13)↩
- According to the newspaper account: “‘I don’t want to scatter bombs willy-nilly,’ Godley is reported saying. ‘We want to kill and wipe out the Pathet Lao.’” (“U.S. Air Blitz Hinted in Laos,” The Evening Star, January 26, 1973, p. 1)↩
- See Document 334.↩
- Moorer decided not to wait until Laird’s departure but to send changed orders that day. In message 1446 to Gayler, Moorer noted that a message on January 25 had increased the level of effort in Laos to approximately 15 B–52 and 200 tactical air sorties per day. He then wrote: “Effective 290001Z January 1973 [i.e., January 29 at 0001Z] you are authorized to further increase the B–52 daily sortie rate in Laos to approximately 30 and the 200 sortie per day tacair limit is removed. Tacair sortie rates will be based upon tactical requirements and capabilities as determined by COMUSMACV.” (National Archives, RG 218, Records of the Chairman, Records of Thomas Moorer, Box 69, JCS Out General Service Messages, January 1973)↩