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

274. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon¹

Washington, November 1971.

SUBJECT

• My October China Visit: Discussions of the Issues

[Omitted here is material unrelated to Indochina and Vietnam.]

Indochina

Our discussions on the afternoon of October 21² on this subject were generally similar to those we held in July.

I underscored the reasonableness of our approach, pointing out that our negotiating proposals had addressed every concern of their allies. I stressed the advantages to the PRC of an Indochina settlement, on the one hand, and the risks of continued conflict on the other hand. Against this backdrop I made a somewhat more emphatic pitch than July for Chinese help with Hanoi, while still making it clear that we would not embarrass Peking. Chou, in turn, emphasized the desirability of our setting final withdrawals before your visit (without insisting on a political solution). He reiterated that peace had to be made with Hanoi directly, but explicitly hoped that negotiations would succeed. As in July, he was obviously uninformed about the details of our negotiations with the North Vietnamese.

Chou led off the session by citing Indochina as an urgent issue and the need for final U.S. withdrawals. He asked why we had not accepted, or at least replied to, Mme. Binh’s seven points. He then explained that they could not accept Ambassador Bruce in Peking while a war was still going on.³ I interjected that we understood this, but given the trust he had in the White House we hoped that the PRC would find him acceptable after the war.

Chou continued that our not setting a date for final withdrawal could prevent your visit to China from being as successful as otherwise, although he made clear that this was not a condition. He repeated the PRC’s support for the seven points and said that final decisions on a settlement rested with Hanoi, not Peking. He then inquired why we had not set a final date and said that this was more urgent than the UN question or the normalization of Sino-US relations.

Telling the Prime Minister that he had been misinformed about the negotiations, I proceeded to give him a fairly detailed rundown of our negotiating efforts over the summer, including the outlines of our most recent proposal of October 11.⁴ I did not give him either a piece of paper or all the details on our proposal, but enough to show its forthcoming nature. I pointed out how we had met all of the concerns of the North Vietnamese and the PRG, even to the point of using some of their formulations. We had addressed ourselves primarily to the North Vietnamese nine point proposal, which, according to Hanoi, superseded the PRG seven points. I told Chou that it was tempting for us to publish our negotiating proposals since this would dominate public opinion in our country, but that we preferred to try and reach a settlement. I then sought Chinese influence in Hanoi with the following arguments:

• —We understood that Peking didn’t want to interfere in the negotiating process. But we questioned whether one small country, obsessed with its suffering and conflict, could be permitted to thwart every sign of progress between the U.S. and Peking because its suspicions were so great that it would not make a negotiated settlement.
• —Why would we want bases in one corner of Asia when the whole trend was toward a new relationship with Asia’s most important country?
• —If Hanoi showed Peking’s largeness of spirit we could settle the war within days.
• —We wanted the independence of North Vietnam and the other countries of Southeast Asia. Perhaps there were others (i.e., the Soviet Union) who might wish to use Hanoi to create a bloc against China.
• —We had made our last offer and we could not go further. We knew the PRC did not trade in principles, but the proposals we had made would end the war on a basis that would not require it to do so.

Chou then asked a series of questions about our withdrawals, the new elections, and the ceasefire. He frankly admitted, as he had in July, that he had not heard a word about these negotiating proposals. He asked whether we had sent a message with Podgorny to Hanoi. When I said that we had not, Chou laughed contemptuously about Russian diplomatic efforts, including their extensive travels since the July announcement. He indicated privately that Moscow had made unspecified proposals in Hanoi which Hanoi had rejected.⁵

Chou said that our withdrawal would be a “glorious act” for us, and I responded that we had to find someone with whom to negotiate. We would withdraw in any event: the only question was whether it would be slowly through our unilateral policy or more quickly as a result of negotiations.

Chou made a distinction between Vietnamese and Indochina-wide ceasefires. He expressed concern that an Indochina ceasefire would freeze the political situation in the entire region (his main problem being Sihanouk’s status, of course). I said that we would not interfere with whatever governments evolved as a result of the ceasefire. We then had a testy exchange on Cambodia where I pointed out that there would not be any need to arrange a ceasefire if North Vietnamese troops would withdraw and let the local forces determine their own future. Chou did not deny their presence; he said that they were there in sympathy for their South Vietnamese compatriots. In order to explain Hanoi’s suspiciousness, he recalled the “deception” of 1954 when the North Vietnamese had been tricked and no election had been held. Getting quite excited, he termed this a “dirty act”, launching into Dulles. I replied that the guarantee for our actions in a peace setttlement lay not in clauses but in the difference in our world outlook compared to the Dulles policy of the 1950s.

I again pointed out the generosity of our proposals and the temptation to go public with them. Chou said that he could not comment on our offer since he did not know about it in detail. (Later I said that I was not giving him our detailed proposal since that was up to the PRC’s ally to do. Chou agreed. In a later meeting Chou did acknowledge that our political proposal represented a new element.) He maintained that Hanoi’s preoccupation and suspicion were understandable for a small, deceived country. The North Vietnamese could not be expected to have a large view like the Chinese. (Marshal Yeh on another occasion told me that Hanoi was too proud; having, as it thinks, defeated the world’s largest military power, Hanoi was very reluctant to take advice. In this it was egged on by Moscow. Peking, according to Yeh, genuinely wanted peace, but it did not want to make it easier for Moscow to pursue its policy of encircling China by creating a pro-Moscow bloc in Indochina.)

In any event, Chou said, the settlement was up to us and Hanoi. He again emphasized that it was important to have this problem essentially settled before you came to China.

I then summed up:

• —I had made seven secret trips this year to Paris which was not the activity of a government seeking to prolong the war;
• —We were no long-term threat to the independence of Vietnam and wanted to make peace;
• —We recognized the limits to what the PRC could do and the complications of the Soviet role, but nevertheless if the opportunity presented itself, we would appreciate Peking’s telling its friends its estimate of the degree of our sincerity in making a just peace.
• —We could not go any further than our proposals of October 11.

Chou again commented that they hoped we could settle and get out, whereas the Soviet Union wished to pin us down. He said it would be impossible not to mention Vietnam in the communiqué if the war had not been settled. I rejoined that there should be no misapprehension that Vietnam was an extremely sensitive issue for us and that it was impossible to accept a communiqué that was critical of us. When Chou asked why we had not made a public pledge of final withdrawals, I said this would gain us two to three months of favorable headlines, but we were interested in making a settlement rather than empty propaganda victories.

Chou concluded by again wishing us well in negotiations, calling Indochina the most urgent problem with regard to the relaxation of tension in the Far East, and saying that U.S. withdrawal would be a glorious act. I closed with the hope that he understood what we were trying to do even though we recognized that the PRC had to support its allies. When I said that the Prime Minister should teach his method of operation to his allies, he commented that the styles of various countries differed and that they couldn’t impose their will on their friends.

In a subsequent session where Chou was bearing down on the issue of foreign troops, I pointed to the Chinese forces in Laos. He said that these were ordinary workers plus antiaircraft forces needed to protect them. If peace came, the latter could be withdrawn “in a day’s time.” In any event these personnel were building the road at the request of the “neutralists” and would all leave when the job was done.

In our last meeting Chou made the rather remarkable comment that he believed we “genuinely want a peaceful settlement.”

Hopefully this issue will have been transformed by the time you go to Peking. We cannot expect Peking to lean hard on its friends. We can expect it to help tip the balance for a negotiated settlement if the other objective realities move Hanoi toward a bargain. If so, Peking will have incentives to encourage North Vietnamese compliance. On the other hand, if the conflict continues, Peking (and Moscow) will not want to see a major offensive—and our reaction—shadowing the summit. Thus the situation on the ground, and our declining role should provide a relatively quiet setting. And the communiqué draft has Peking backing its friends in inoffensive language while we emphasize a negotiated settlement.⁶

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 1035, Files for the President, China Materials, China, HAK’s October 1971 Visit. Top Secret; Sensitive; Exclusively Eyes Only. Sent for information. The memorandum is unsigned and no specific date is indicated. It is printed in full in Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume XVII, China, 1969–1972, Document 164.
2. The memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and Zhou Enlai is ibid., Document 162.
3. During his July trip to Beijing, Kissinger asked Zhou Enlai if Bruce could accompany him to China during the October visit. Zhou agreed, but Ambassador Huang informed Kissinger in Paris later in July that Bruce would not be welcome in China. See ibid., Documents 143 and 151. See also White House Years, p. 769.
4. See Document 269.
5. On October 30, Kissinger met Dobrynin and discussed, among other things, prospects for peace in Vietnam and the role of the Chinese and Soviets in the potential settlement. See Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume XIV, Soviet Union, October 1971–May 1972, Document 8.
6. The draft joint communiqué is ibid., volume XVII, China, 1969–1972, Document 145, Tab A. The final text of the Shanghai Communiqué, issued on February 27, 1972, at the end of President Nixon’s visit to China, is printed ibid., Document 203, and in Public Papers: Nixon, 1972, pp. 372–379.