Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume VII, Vietnam, July 1970–January 1972

157. Conversation Among President Nixon, the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), and the White House Chief of Staff (Haldeman)¹

Washington, March 18, 1971.

Kissinger: We had another two-hour session on these—²

Nixon: Yeah.

Kissinger: —logistics, and it’s a—it’s a hopelessly complicated subject. I’m writing a memo for you to read over the weekend, without figures, just to—

Nixon: Well, I don’t want to read any memos, because I’m going to be preparing for the [Howard K.] Smith thing next week—³

Kissinger: No, no, but I thought you might use it for the Smith thing—

Nixon: Oh. Oh, I see.

Kissinger: Not use figures, but show some of the factors why we are so confident that this has been a success. And now, I really am very confident, now that I’ve worked through these things.

Nixon: Yeah.

Kissinger: And I’m—

Nixon: Did Smith find out?

Kissinger: I’ve really gone through every figure on every road, and if you add—what I’m going to do is to come to—they were so delighted about many of the technical things. I made them analyze what is re—was required to support last year’s level of activity in Vietnam. I mean, what the total tonnage is. What tonnage they would have had to put in through Laos to make—to supply that, plus make up for Sihanoukville, minus what was consumed in Laos by the troops they had in Laos in terms of rice, in terms of ammunition expenditure, minus what we took out in these countries. And the figures don’t have to be right, as long as the percentages are the same. And it now looks as if it is impossible for them, for this year, to start a dry season offensive on any projectional figures; impossible for them to have a 1st and 2nd Corps offensive this year; and, probably, not possible for them to do an offensive next year before April and May. And the details of these figures, I’ll give them to you in time. But, we have had a lot of benefits that when—we hadn’t really analyzed properly. For example, because of Cambodia, they’ve been expecting an attack into Laos ever since last year.

Nixon: Right.

Kissinger: So, they put in 50,000 troops where, last year, they had 7,000 troops. If you just add the rice consumption for 50,000 troops—

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kissinger: —you create a totally new consumption pattern, and no one had done this before.

Nixon: [Aside, possibly to operator] Well, I asked for Secretary Connally on the telephone, I said.

Kissinger: So, this has been—for example, one—one big [unclear], then, if you add the ammunition expenditure they’ve had for ten regiments in that area, it’s another thing, a drain on their, on their supplies. I mean, even if we, even if we didn’t stop a single truck as a result of the operation, these things had to go off the—had to go off the total figures. But then, when you put it all together, actually, your figure of 55 percent was wildly conservative. Up to now, they have gotten through only 80 percent of last year’s, but there’s still a lot in the pipeline, so it will go up beyond that. But, I’m really—

Nixon: What we really need, if you will [unclear] and I will not need you to dissect when I start studying this Sunday morning, but what we really need is precise things that I can say that are conservative and true. That’s all.

Kissinger: Well, we can—

Nixon: I’ll lay it out there and put it right on Howard—Howard Smith [unclear].

Kissinger: And we can make one hell of a summary also for you for April 7th.⁴

Nixon: Yes, sir.

Kissinger: We can really do it.

Nixon: Yeah.

Kissinger: I really must say, even—

[unclear exchange]

Nixon: [unclear] already?

Haldeman: Yeah.

Kissinger: Even if it ends next week—

Nixon: Sure.

Kissinger: —some of this stuff, because when you add it, the figures of what it takes to feed 50,000 people in southern Laos, as compared to 8,000 last year, and—

Nixon: [unclear] Let me tell you, Henry, I have that feeling. There are other reasons. I—I just know that going in there and knocking the livin’ bejeezus out of those in Laos [unclear]—

Kissinger: It scared them.

Nixon: And it scared ‘em. And part of it—and it sent the international establishment into such a tizzy, and these people are deeply proud. The other thing—and I think your point is—these bastards, they’ve got to look at their hole card now. We’ll find out. If they’re going to negotiate, they’re going to negotiate in the next three or four months.

Kissinger: That’s right. Well, Walt Rostow was in today.⁵

Nixon: Oh, yeah.

Kissinger: Of course, he’s often wrong, but he’s—

Nixon: No, I—He’s not really—

Kissinger: Actually, his judgments have been—

Haldeman: Pretty right.

Nixon: No. Hell, no! I—I agree with Rostow. He makes good speeches, everything.

Kissinger: Walt—

Nixon: He should have been in to come and say hello.

Kissinger: Well, Walt Rostow said—

Nixon: He knows we’re doing the right thing, doesn’t he? Huh?

Kissinger: Absolutely. He, he—

Nixon: Hmm?

Kissinger: He said something today—he said—and that really takes a lot for him—he said, “If we could have put your President together with our Cabinet, we would have really done something.”

Nixon: [laughs] [unclear]

Kissinger: Yeah.

Haldeman: That’s kind of interesting.

Nixon: Well—

Kissinger: This is an interesting—

Nixon: Well, he had Rusk, of course, who is a tower of strength.

Kissinger: Yeah. And McNamara, in his way—

Nixon: He did what he was told.

Kissinger: What?

[unclear exchange]

Kissinger: McNamara would never have leaked.

Nixon: Never.

[unclear exchange]

Nixon: But what, what did Walt say?

Kissinger: Well, Walt says his gut feeling tells him they’re getting ready to negotiate, and, to him, the Chou En-Lai visit to Hanoi—

Nixon: Yeah?

Kissinger: —was the beginning of a political process rather than the opposite.

Haldeman: Hmm.

Kissinger: And, today, the Russians attacked China on the radio for being willing to sell out in Vietnam.

Nixon: [laughs] Sell out?

Kissinger: Yes.

Nixon: There is the problem, I think. I think the problem with both—the reason the Russians can’t help us there is that they can’t be timid, and they can’t be accused of selling out. The reason the Chinese can—they can’t be accused of it, so the hardliners in Hanoi—

Kissinger: Of course, the, the trouble for Hanoi is—

Nixon: Yeah?

Kissinger: —that they’ve now fought for 10 years against us. They must’ve lost at least 700,000 men.

Nixon: Yeah.

Kissinger: They’ve had a whole young generation that are neither productive in North Vietnam, or, for that matter, even breeding.

Nixon: Yeah.

Kissinger: I bet their birthrate—I’m serious—

Nixon: [unclear]

Kissinger: —their birthrate must be way, way down.

Nixon: Why—good God, there’s no men!

Kissinger: There are no men there.

Nixon: Yeah!

Kissinger: And, all it—if it ends now, they’ll have very little to show for it. The fact that we can now run two big operations—at this moment there are five and a half North and South Vietnamese divisions outside of the country, and they haven’t been able to get a guerrilla movement started. And that is—

Nixon: They haven’t got one in Cambodia. Incidentally, what’s happening in northern Laos?

Kissinger: Nothing.

Nixon: What the hell’s the trouble there, though?

Kissinger: Well, we laid in some B–52 strikes a few weeks ago.

Nixon: Aren’t we—but, but, you know—

Kissinger: They all told—

Nixon: —Helms told us five weeks ago, we’re going to lose it again.

Kissinger: That’s right.

Nixon: Maybe we’ll lose it next month?

Kissinger: We may lose it, but every month, week we gain brings that rainy season closer.

Nixon: When is their rainy season? Their’s is early, isn’t it?

Kissinger: It starts in the middle of June.

Nixon: Middle of June?

Kissinger: Yeah.

Nixon: May? Because it varies over there, doesn’t it?

Kissinger: Yeah. And the—and in Cambodia, there are next to no incidents.

Nixon: Yeah.

Kissinger: Route 4 is open. You see when Route 4 was cut, it was reported every day. Now, unescorted convoys go from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh every day. And there’s no report in the newspapers—

Nixon: No—

Kissinger: —that there are no incidents.

Nixon: —good news is never reported.

Kissinger: So—

Nixon: It’s all right. It comes out in the end, when we’re done.

Kissinger: But, I must say, this analysis, I found very encouraging, because I, I didn’t go in with that expectation, particularly. I didn’t know what the—

Nixon: But, this analysis—they’ve got it, too, Henry. And they’ve got to look at their hole card. What the hell can they do?

Kissinger: They have only—they have two hopes, now. The one hope is that—

Nixon: Get Thieu out—

Kissinger:—that Thieu would collapse with the election in October. So, he may not be so wrong in playing it closely.

Nixon: Yeah.

Kissinger: And, the other one is our election. But our election, in my judgment, is a double-edged sword for him—

Nixon: Yeah.

Kissinger: —for them, because if you get reelected—because you’ve demonstrated, from their point of view, unpredictability—and now, not having to be elected again—

Nixon: Yeah.

Kissinger: —there’s just no telling what you’ll do.

Nixon: Yeah. So damn true.

Kissinger: That’s one problem. The second problem is: if we don’t give them a date before, and if you leave it in fairly good shape, and you should get defeated, would a Democrat dare to sell it out and take the opprobrium? So—

Nixon: Right.

Kissinger: So, I’m not sure that the ’72 election is as clear a signal to them as the ’68 one was. In ’68, they thought if they would get rid of Johnson, they’d have it made.

Nixon: Hmm. They thought they’d get Humphrey.

Kissinger: And they thought they’d get Humphrey. But, in ’72, this isn’t so, so clear to them. And, if we get into a negotiation with them on a very private basis, this is a point—

Nixon: Yeah.

Kissinger: —that should be made to them.

Nixon: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kissinger: I actually think this summer, if we—if our domestic situation holds reasonably well, and we don’t give the deadline away, the deadline is our best bargaining chip—

Nixon: Sure it is. Well, maybe that little memorandum⁶ will help.

Kissinger: If we give it away November or December or October—if we—if we don’t get a negotiation by November—

Nixon: We’ll do it then.

Kissinger: Then doesn’t make any difference—

Nixon: No, that’s right.

Kissinger: Then we can do it—

Nixon: That’s right.

Kissinger: Then we should do it.

Nixon: What we should—we’ve got to, then. That’s the time to give it away. Right after Thieu’s election, we’ll have a little meeting—assuming he gets elected—

Kissinger: That’s right.

Nixon: —and announce the whole damn thing, and that’s that. And the war is dead as an issue.

Kissinger: No problem.

Nixon: [snaps his fingers] Like that. Out! That’s the time to do it.

Kissinger: But, if you do it now, you’ll just get into the [unclear].

Nixon: Well, if you do it now, the main problem is right now, if you do it it’s a little bit more important, you—there is still a chance that you could negotiate something. And, boy, that would be the best of all worlds—

Kissinger: [unclear]

Nixon: —to get it done. And I had chances. You know, I never thought it was very good, but there’s some, now. There was none before. So, what the hell—?

Kissinger: And now, what—we wouldn’t put to them the political proposition. Now, we would just negotiate military arrangements.

Nixon: Military arrangements. Mutual withdrawal.

Kissinger: That’s right.

Nixon: What about Cambodia and Laos?

Kissinger: Well, they’ll have to stand-down there, too.

Nixon: Yeah. All right, well, if it’s something—

[unclear exchange]

Nixon: —or, or, or the cease-fire, at least.

Kissinger: Yeah, we can do it in one of two ways. We can either not have mutual withdrawal, but just negotiate a cease-fire for our withdrawal and the prisoners, which would give everybody another year to gear themselves up without Communist attacks.

Nixon: Yeah.

Kissinger: And, since we’re going to get out anyway in, in a year and a half, it doesn’t make any difference whether we agree to get out in a year.

Nixon: Sure.

Kissinger: Once we are below 100,000 troops we have no combat effectiveness left—

Nixon: None—

Kissinger: —and—

Nixon: Well, the air.

Kissinger: The air. Yeah, but we could do a lot from Thailand and from carriers if they break the agreement.

Nixon: Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah. Okay.

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Oval Office, Conversation 469–13. No classification marking. The editors transcribed the portion of the conversation printed here specifically for this volume. The conversation was part of a larger conversation that took place between 6:25 and 7:32 p.m.
2. Not further identified.
3. See footnote 3, Document 156.
4. On April 7, Nixon addressed the nation on the situation in Southeast Asia; see Public Papers: Nixon, 1971, pp. 522–527.
5. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, April 1, 1966–January 20, 1969.
6. In a March 18 memorandum to the Director of Central Intelligence and Secretaries of State and Defense, Nixon gave the following instructions regarding discussion of troop withdrawals: “(1) My comment at my March 4, 1971 press conference that our withdrawals will continue at the present rate referred specifically to the current increment. It is not to be construed in any way as a decision or directive applying to the entire withdrawal schedule. (2) In April I intend to make my decision as to the next increment of withdrawals. Until I announce that decision there should be no speculation either on or off the record on the size of the increment or the length of time it covers.” (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 115, Vietnam Subject Files, Vietnam Troop Withdrawals, Vietnam Troop Redeployment)