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

220. Conversation Among President Nixon, the Ambassador to Vietnam (Bunker), and the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)¹

Washington, June 16, 1971.

Nixon: Well, now, let me—let’s come down to our problems. As Henry discussed with you the—

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: —the July thing.

Bunker: Yes.

Nixon: You can see the problem—

Bunker: I do, yes.

Nixon: —with the—I do not see anything that would be gained, certainly here.

Bunker: Yes.

Nixon: And my guess is, I don’t know there would be, would be gained much, there, at this point—

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: —to have a meeting,² but—and, I thought that in lieu of that, that if—that if it is in lieu of it in a public sense, if it is in lieu of it—if it’s in terms of its [unclear]. Henry wants to take this out, take a fact finding trip out to that part of the world, anyway—

Bunker: Yes. Yeah.

Nixon: And he could come and then he could sit down and talk candidly about our aid program—

Bunker: Yes, yes.

Nixon: —and all the rest, as to—

Bunker: Yes.

Nixon: And on a very private basis.

Bunker: Exactly.

Nixon: But our—but the real problem is that if we, if we escalate, if we rush over there right now with all of the talk about, you know, this. What do you think of these—this New York Times thing?³

[Omitted here is conversation related to the release of the Pentagon Papers.]

Nixon: But coming back to the options thing, now—

[unclear exchange]

Kissinger: Well, the problem with Defense is—Ellsworth and I have been talking about this. We believe—almost everybody except the civilians in Defense believes—that the ARVN improvement packages have to be strengthened. They have a vested interest in their packages, and they’ve been resisting this idea. I talked to you about this, Mr. President. Because, they, for example, want to pull out all American helicopters by next year.

[Omitted here is further discussion of Vietnam and of the President’s schedule.]

Nixon: Our goal is clear: our goal, now, is that, as we come to the—near the end of this long road is to succeed. We can succeed. You agree?

Bunker: Yes.

Nixon: Well, now, we can.

Bunker: Yes.

Nixon: We can, but, on the other hand, we must not give our enemies—and I’m not referring to our enemies in North Vietnam, but our enemies in this country—we cannot give them the weapons to kill us with. Now—

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: —I think that—I think—I think, for example, any meeting with Thieu, by me, at this point—that’s why I was trying—

Bunker: Yes.

Nixon: —to get it June 8th, that early—

Bunker: Yes.

Nixon: —though we’ve had that washed out. But, any meeting, at this point, will—it’d be inevitably hyped into a blatant attempt on our part to strengthen his political position—

Bunker: I agree. I agree.

Nixon: That will hurt him here.

Bunker: Yes.

Nixon: It also could hurt him there.

Bunker: It could hurt him in there, too.

Nixon: Now, I—I think he must be really—he must be told that in substitution for that, he will have our—he’s had as much support as he has, and God knows, nobody’s given him support as we have.

Bunker: Certainly not.

Nixon: Second, that Henry’s going to come out and look the thing over. Now—

Bunker: Yes.

Nixon: —can you sell that to him?

Bunker: I think so. Yes, sir. I will. He—I think, yes. I think that he’ll—

Nixon: You can tell him that you’ve—

Bunker: He said [unclear]—

Nixon: —looked over American public opinion—

Kissinger: That’s right.

Nixon: —and you’ve looked over the Senate.

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: And that, right now, the best thing is to let it ride through the Senate.

Bunker: I think—

Kissinger: Because it’s all over the front pages.

Bunker: You know, I think in the interest of the elections there, if this took place, Minh, for example, might use this as an excuse just to pull out, you know? And, as I’ve said to Thieu, “You can’t run alone. [chuckles] You can’t run for office alone. You’ve got to have some other competitors, and Minh is just that sort of fellow.” I’m afraid he’ll pull out, anyway, at the end.

Nixon: Is Ky running with Minh now, or not?

Bunker: No. Ky’s running separately, independently.

Nixon: Yeah.

Bunker: And, I have—

Nixon: So, Ky definitely is? Ky will get enough of the Deputies to be able to run?

Bunker: Oh, I think he’ll get the provincial—I think he and—I think he and Minh have got a deal that Minh will work the Assembly, and Ky will work the counselors. And Minh will get—

Kissinger: Oh. Oh, so they don’t take away from each other—

Bunker: They don’t take it away from each other. I have a—

Nixon: Well—

Bunker: I have an interesting document I’d like to show you and Henry.

Nixon: Hang on.

Bunker: [5 seconds not declassified]

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Bunker: [24 seconds not declassified]

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Bunker: [3 seconds not declassified ]

Nixon: Um-hmm?

Bunker: [16 seconds not declassified]

Nixon: [3 seconds not declassified]

Bunker: [2 seconds not declassified]

Nixon: Good.

Bunker: [2 seconds not declassified]

Kissinger: You were surprised by this?

Nixon: Oh, sure—

Bunker: [unclear]

Nixon: Just keep it—

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: —and we’ll have to hope for the best.

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: Well, right now, he is ahead. He’s very well-advised not to press it.

Bunker: Exactly.

Nixon: By the same token, I don’t know what else could keep him ahead. Getting back to this problem that we had yesterday in the drug thing, as you can see, that is a—that is just an enormously potent issue.

Bunker: Oh, precisely—

Nixon: It’s—Young—Milt Young⁴ has never voted against us on Vietnam, he’s gonna vote against us on McGovern–Hatfield, solely because of drugs. Solely because of drugs.

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: He went back to Bismarck, South [North] Dakota and found out that people could buy shots for two dollars at Bien Hoa airport or Tan Son Nhut or some damn thing, and so he’s gonna vote against [unclear]. And, of course, there’re these stories about, well, the brother of the prime minister is involved; they don’t know that the prime minister is not Thieu, it’s somebody else. They think, ‘Well this is Thieu,” and then—and so forth and everything. It has a—it smacks of everything that’s wrong. What the hell is it? We all know that. The Turks have the same problem: their relatives are all in the business—the, the rest. But—but, I just can’t emphasize too strongly that—

Bunker: Hmm?

Nixon: —that—I don’t know. Maybe our own people just go in and shoot up those drug places. I don’t know why, but we’ve got to get—and this hurts us. It has to be done, or we’ve got a massive investigation on our hands.

Bunker: Yes. He knows that, and I’ll—

Nixon: Yeah. I know you talked to him. In your briefing, you put it into him. And I don’t want to belabor the subject. You’re keenly aware of it.

Bunker: Oh, yes.

Nixon: Just put it at the top of the agenda—

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: —and don’t, don’t—

Bunker: And Thieu is aware of it. He’s [unclear].

Nixon: Don’t give the press a chance to [unclear]. [laughs]

Bunker: Yeah, yeah. And, it’s a tremendous problem. You see, as I said on Monday, they were not users. I mean—

Nixon: No.

Bunker: —we brought it there and, and provided the market. And now, they’re scared, worried it’s going to spread to their own troops [unclear] and concerned that when we’re out, if it has spread to their troops, when we pull out, that they’re going to be in a real mess. So, let’s see. This morning, this report came in that he’d put in this colonel. He told me he was going to put in a new Director-General for customs for South Vietnam, a big shake-up. So, we’ll get at—keep at it, and keep the pressure on.

Nixon: Well, the—with regard to other problems, what do you see then at the present time? Is there anything that you want to—

Bunker: Well—

Nixon: —emphasize to Thieu—?

Bunker: President Thieu asked me, of course, to give you his regards, and as he said, which I’ve already reported, there are three things only that he’s concerned about and had one to take up with me. One was immediate economic assistance, long-term economic assistance.

Nixon: Well, he has our assurance on that. And Kissinger, when he is there will reassure him.

Bunker: Yes. Now, the second thing—

Nixon: Why don’t you put it on the basis that Kissinger—that’s one of the points: that Kissinger is prepared—

Bunker: Yes. Fine—

Nixon: —to discuss substantively with him at that point.

Kissinger: That’s right, and [unclear]—

Nixon: Speaking—and that he can speak with total authority.

Bunker: Good. The second thing, Mr. President was the acceleration of the ARVN improvement and modernization program. They’ve asked for some improved weapons. As a result, Thieu said what they learned in the Lam Son Operation, what the enemy had: they had longer-range artillery; they had bigger tanks; and they—these are things they want. And I think they want some more helicopters, probably. The—

Nixon: Hmm.

Bunker: The—Abrams and I talked to him a week ago and went over some of these things with him. Abrams told him, he said, “Well, it wouldn’t have made a difference if you had bigger tanks because of the command problem [more] than your armor. The result would have been the same.” Well that’s true. But, as I said—

Nixon: Hmm.

Bunker: —they’ve got to fix up the command problem, but then when—if they do, they’ve still got—

Nixon: What if they got tanks—?

Bunker: —smaller tanks. [laughs]

Nixon: Listen, there can be no excuse about that, and Henry will be very forthcoming on that. Incidentally, I—I don’t care what’s out there. Leave it there. This business of just picking up a lot of stuff and hauling it home, it doesn’t do anything except for bookkeeping. I didn’t know they take it out to Arizona and let it rot and rust in the fields. Leave it in Vietnam. Let ‘em sell it, put it on the black market, anything they want. Leave it in Vietnam if it’ll help.

Bunker: Then the third thing, Mr. President, is assurance of continued air support. You see, on this basis, the—the—Thieu feels, and I think, we think, he’s right, too—that Lam Son and our better air position has taken care of this year. When it comes to the dry season again in the fall, November, they’ll begin to try to build up supplies—

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Bunker: —for a push in the March–May period—

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Bunker: —and again in the August–September period.

Nixon: Yeah.

Bunker: Around our elections. And we can’t let anything go wrong next year before our elections here.

Nixon: Yeah.

Bunker: And, therefore, they’ll need air support, because they can’t. Their planes, what we’ve given them, are really not, not much good for interdiction. They’re small jets that don’t carry bombs. The one thing they complain about is that they can’t carry enough bomb load; they have to go back and rearm so, so often that they lose time. But our interdiction has been improved tremendously this year. Last year—

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Bunker: —the throughput was about 37 percent of the input. So far this year, because of Lam Son and the interdiction, it’s been about 15.7 percent. It’s been a vast improvement, and it’s made a tremendous difference. And this is going to be a factor next year. And this is why both Abrams and I think Thieu is right about this; that he does need air support. And when Secretary Laird [unclear] he told us about the reduction in the budget proposal for air, for $200 million this coming year, and $500 million the next. Well, how, how that’s going to affect us? I don’t know, but I do think it’s an important thing.

Nixon: Um-hmm. Um-hmm.

Bunker: I think those are the three. Those are—he says those are the only three points that he’s concerned about—

Nixon: Well, now, on the air support, there’s certainly no problem this year.

Bunker: No.

Nixon: I mean [unclear] in October—in November and December, and so forth and so on, I mean, just drop everything there is. The real problem we get driven down to, the budgetary problems, I suppose, is to what we’re going to have left by August and September of next year. And also what the situation is.

Bunker: Well, he said it seems to be a question, then, of priorities. I mean, where they’re shifting from something else to this.

Nixon: Hmm. What’s your view on this, Henry?

Kissinger: My—

Nixon: Your—

Kissinger: My view is, first of all, we should force Defense to program full air support through next year, because if we don’t, they’ll just yank it out of there.

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kissinger: Even if we don’t use it.

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kissinger: And, secondly, as long as we can keep the interdiction bombing going, they are in bad shape for launching a big offensive. If we started—I think after September next year, or, in fact, even earlier, that their supply effort for the August–September period is during the spring.

Bunker: Yeah.

Kissinger: So, we’ve got to keep it going through the spring in Laos, in southern Laos—

Nixon: Hmm.

Kissinger: —the northern part is, is less—

Nixon: It [unclear].

Kissinger: Because weather.

Bunker: Yeah. And I think [unclear]. I think we can’t let anything go wrong before our elections next year.

Nixon: Yeah. Henry is right. As far as the air support is concerned, what really counts, insofar as their offensive in September, or August and September, it’s got to be—you’ve got to knock ‘em off in the spring [unclear].

Bunker: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.

Nixon: Well, we’ll do that. We can commit to that.

Bunker: And they—

Nixon: They just have to do it.

Bunker: Yeah. The interdiction has been—it’s been a tricky job this year. They’ve got some improved equipment, these new C–130 gunships—

Nixon: Yeah.

Bunker: —are doing a good job—

Nixon: You mean they are doing better?

Bunker: Oh, yeah. That’s the main thing, Mr. President. The economic situation, I think, is, at present, it’s better than I thought it would be, you know, with these—

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Bunker: —reforms we’ve put in. Now, prices have only increased since the end of December about 2.8 percent.

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Bunker: And in the last twelve months, only 8.2 percent, which is a pretty good, a pretty good record considering we used to think 30 percent a year was good. So, it’s been—it’s been done pretty well. Their Minister of Economy is here, now—

Nixon: Yeah.

Bunker: —who is first rate, the best man they’ve got in the Cabinet—

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Bunker: —and Thieu has given extremely good backing. But, those are the main things. The—Thieu, as you know, has suggested—has said that observer groups would be welcome, and—

Nixon: Hmm?

Bunker: —I think—

Nixon: Then get [unclear]. Get on the offensive on that.

Kissinger: But we have a group. We have a—

Nixon: [unclear] get on the offensive [unclear].

Kissinger: Oh, yeah, we’re putting one together.

Bunker: Are you?

Kissinger: Yeah.

Bunker: Good.

Nixon: Both sides? Democrats and Republicans?

Kissinger: [unclear]

Bunker: Fast.

Nixon: We’ve got to do it in order to—because, you know, some of these people are asking that a special committee be set up. Well, let’s—well, put one together, but put one together that’s representative. Let them go out and look.

Bunker: As a matter of fact, Adlai Stevenson⁵ is coming to see me this afternoon.

Nixon: Well, he’s wanted to put in a resolution—

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: —in that respect.

Kissinger: Of course, what he really wants is something that means he really—

Bunker: He wants to—he wants to monitor me.

Nixon: Yeah.

Bunker: Yes.

Nixon: Exactly.

Bunker: [unclear]

Nixon: Well, to see that the Americans do not play a role in it. Well, you just say we’re not going to play any role.

Bunker: That’s what I’ll—I’ll give him the—that’s just something to put out to the Mission.

Nixon: Why, of course. We’ve got to keep it out of the Mission, and it’s sensible [unclear]. He, then, will look at the past history and that he’s on a bad wicket here.

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: Say, “You—you’re welcome to come; we have nothing to hide.”

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: But, let them—invite him as an individual to come. But put him on that committee, Henry. [unclear] Put him right on. In other words—what—who is on it, now? Who are they trying to—got any names?

Kissinger: I have, but I don’t have the list here.

Nixon: But McGregor is getting together a list is he?

Kissinger: Yes.

Nixon: Understand: this should not be an in-house deal. It should be a—

Kissinger: No, no. It’s bipartisan.

Nixon: A bipartisan group. Go out and look at the elections. Let’s get it out. I’d like to have an announcement on that soon.

Bunker: And we had two very—three good experts on it last time. We had Dick Scammon.⁶

Kissinger: Excellent.

Bunker: And we had Professor Herzberg from Rutgers, and Penniman from Georgetown.⁷ They were both—they were very good.

Nixon: Well, fine. Put them on—

Bunker: Scammon helped me out on the briefing questions.

Nixon: Scammon?

Bunker: Yes?

Nixon: Put him on.

Bunker: Right.

Nixon: But Scammon, of course, is a top Democrat, which helps, too—

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: —if Henry puts him on the thing. Look, those elections are more fair than most elections in most American cities. Now, let’s face it.

Bunker: Yeah.

[unclear exchange]

Kissinger: Than any of the elections in Southeast Asia.

Nixon: Well—well, there are no—there are no fair elections in Southeast Asia, and there are no fair elections in Latin America. You know that.

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: Maybe Mexico.

Bunker: Well, Scammon—

[unclear exchange]

Nixon: Well, they can’t—our Democratic critics can’t question Scammon because he’s their Bible on politics.

Kissinger: Yeah.

Nixon: Well, let’s take the offensive on that. Let’s get that out right away. That it’s—it’s to knock off the Stevenson thing. We should see Stevenson, and—but point out that we welcome him. And I’d just disarm him. Say, “There’s nothing to hide.”

Bunker. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Right.

Nixon: The interesting thing is that the, that the—apparently, from what I hear, most everybody who goes to Vietnam comes back [unclear]. Dick Watson is a case in point. He says, “You know, I went there with great skepticism,” and he says to me, he says, “I’ve—anyways, I came back a convert.”

Bunker: Oh, yes. He had a breakdown there. He was—

Nixon: Yeah. But the point is—the point is that he’d been exposed to the French.

Bunker: Yeah.

Nixon: He came out there and saw what was going on. He says, “I came back, said they were all wrong.” Our real accomplishment is that, at this time, is that nobody, really, would have predicted that things would be going as well as they are now. Put it—yeah, you can talk all you want about Lam Son, but, how in the world, how in the world would casualties have been averaging 20, unless we’d done Lam Son, right?

Bunker: Sure.

Nixon: Nineteen last week, 23 this week, right?

Kissinger: Twenty-five this week.

Nixon: They’d have been 75, I mean—

Bunker: Oh, absolutely. I—Lam Son, you know, in spite of the press, was a good—a good operation, and some of the Vietnamese units did superb jobs: the First Division; the Marines; the Airborne. They did a tremendous job.

Kissinger: Well, actually, the Vietnamese units that bothered me are not the ones in Lam Son. I think they fought well. It’s the ones that have, that fought in Cambodia.

Bunker: Well, one division—

Nixon: I think that’s Tri’s.

Kissinger: Yeah. The one that fought in Snuol.

Bunker: Well, that’s the Fifth Division. Now—and this—Abrams and I have been a year trying to get that commander changed. And Thieu has agreed and agreed and agreed. Finally, six weeks before Snuol, Abe was off—was away a week in Thailand on a holiday, and Mike Davison sent in a memorandum [unclear] and said they had to really get this fellow out. I went to Thieu, and I said, “This is it. We’ve been talking about this for 9, 10 months. You’ve got to do it.” He said, “Yes, a top priority to finally get the right man.” Well, it took Snuol, finally, to get the job done. Now, he’s put in a—what Abrams said was the best regimental commander from the 21st Division, in the Delta, which was Minh’s old division, before he became [unclear]. But Minh is a good man. He’s—he’s all right.

Nixon: What is your—[clears throat] Of course, when you come back to this country—it must depress you when you see—

Bunker: Well, it sure does.

Nixon: But, out there, how do you feel?

Bunker: Oh, out there, I feel fine. Out there, I mean, I think things are going well, except for this damn drug business. But, I think that as far as the Vietnamization goes, I think things are going, going great. And now, the situation is stable, and I think things are moving. The campaign, I think, is going to be rough—

Nixon: Sure.

Bunker: —and—but, I think it’s good. I think [unclear] if Ky and Minh do run, because I think Thieu will win, and I think that they have a chance to play for a big, open competition.

Nixon: Um-Hmm. Hmm.

Bunker: There’s criticism, of course, of this endorsement provision, but the reason for it is entirely fair, in that we had eleven candidates last time.

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Oval Office, Conversation 522–2. No classification marking. The editors transcribed the portions of the tape recording printed here specifically for this volume. The exchange is part of a larger conversation, 10:39 a.m.–12:07 p.m. According to the Nixon tapes log, Kissinger entered at 11:21 a.m. and Bunker at 11:32 a.m.
2. In a June 15 briefing memorandum to Nixon for the meeting, Kissinger advised him to ask Bunker to gauge Thieu’s possible reaction if he canceled the Midway meeting. (Ibid., NSC Files, Box 155, Vietnam Country Files, Viet June 71) At various times during the first half of the year, the date of the proposed meeting had slipped from early to late June and then to early July.
3. On June 13, The New York Times broke the Pentagon Papers story about the existence of the multi-volume classified history entitled United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967 that then Secretary of Defense McNamara had commissioned. Over the next several weeks the Times published scores of stories about the Papers as well as excerpts from various volumes.
4. Senator Milton R. Young (R–ND).
5. Senator Adlai E. Stevenson, III (D–IL).
6. Richard M. Scammon, political scientist, expert on public opinion, and election analyst, was an official United States observer of South Vietnam’s 1967 Presidential election.
7. Political scientists Donald G. Herzberg and Howard R. Penniman had been United States observers of South Vietnam’s 1967 Presidential election.