Working on this war without trying to negotiate an end. I had come back from paris, we were trying to do the exact thing. But you couldnt mention it. Couldnt mention it. Whose decision was it to make these talks secret . So was it so you could advance more who had the courage to do it. We felt you cannot make progress, propaganda, with the whole world watching. Youve got to do it secretly. I think the North Vietnamese werent that interested in negotiations, except as a tactic to wear us out or to see whether we could make the kind of deal they could live with. They didnt want to accused by the vietcong and others of being overly soft. What do you think, joe . I think here winston and i may differ slightly. I think its important to have secret negotiations. They accompany almost any negotiation about a serious issue. But i think henry had a somewhat expansive view of that, which is keeping it secret. Thats a different issue. I meant the public. I understand. My point is, for him secret negotiations also meant not telling the state department or pentagon or keeping them somewhat in the dark. Lets explore that a little while. On one hand you were negotiating, and you were exhausted, negotiating in good faith. Everything you seemed to try wasnt working. You were getting beaten up in the press, called you baby killers. It was a terrible time. Yet at the same time you were keeping i guess president nixon had the courage to take that because he thought it was the most effective way to negotiate an end to the war. But talk to me about why was it kept secret from the rest of the government . Was that essential do you think . Because everything leaks in washington. And thats the quick answer. Nixon and kissinger particularly. And henry, for both good and ill, was very possessive of our National Security and diplomatic he only could be because nixon was possessive. Theres not been anybody since Henry Kissinger who has had as much authority or power over our National Security, no one individual. Either in the state department anywhere. It was incredibly difficult. Again, you have to see the mood of the country at the time. It was simply incredibly difficult to keep a secret. Because of the passions of the issue. Yes. It would have leaked immediately. The word passions is a very modest word. I might add one other thing. Well get to this a little later, but when the secret talks became known, then we had sort of semi secret talks, namely in 1972, which well get to, we would not announce in advance we were having talks. We would secretly go over and have the talks, but then afterwards we and the North Vietnamese would brief the press on what was happening. They were secret in the sense that nobody would know what was going on other than the sanitized briefings. 69, 70, 71, escalation negotiations. Nothing seems to happen. When did the break through come . Were now at the middle 1971, kissinger made a secret trip to china. Did that change everything . I think we have to back up for a second. First, im checking the chronology. We had the laos incursion. Ill let the others handle that. It was a waste of time. But again, it was china. Again, the basic point they had these sanctuaries. The quick answer is it was the South Vietnamese expedition essentially with our support because of the constrictions of congress, and it wasnt very effective. So then, what happened, very significant. Thats why we have to stop for a minute. May 1971. You had a secret meeting in which we set forth obviously with nixons full approval what essentially became the agreement a year and a half later. It essentially was the following. It was a militaryonly agreement. The North Vietnamese positions from the very beginning until the breakthrough that well get to was not only are we supposed to withdraw unilaterally, but as we leave vietnam, were supposed to over throw the government and install a coalition government. And not force them to leave. As i said, unilaterally. That was their position. Nixon was prepared to have a military only solution, but he was not prepared to overthrow an ally for all the reasons of world credibility, morality and sacrifice. The may proposal and this is very important for history because a lot of revisionists saying we could have had the final agreement earlier. We couldnt have had it because until the break through in october of 72, North Vietnamese insisted on replacing the the government. In may 71 we put a sevenpoint plan forward consisting of the following, unilateral withdraw but no further infiltration across the dmz of any more North Vietnamese troops, a ceasefire, get our prisoners back, independence and ceasefire in laos and cambodia and international supervision. That is essentially what the final paris accords look like. We put that forward, and for the first time, the North Vietnamese began to take us they see there was something to negotiate, but they continue to hang on to the political settlement dimension. So we couldnt strike a deal because that to us was dishonorable and so on. They wouldnt budge on that. So these promising negotiations, of the seven points we sort of agreed on five or five and a half with a lot of details to come on. We couldnt get to the seventh which was the political future of South Vietnam as to be determined by the vietnamese themselves. It doesnt mean overthrowing the government. And so we then ran into an impasse even though we had some hopes. It included the opening of china. Henrys secret trip was in july 71. Coming back, dick smyser was on that trip with me. And as we came back from the secret trip to china, it was a public trip generally including a stop in paris. Ill let dick give some of the color of how we managed to pull that secret negotiation off in paris on our way back. This is before the president announced secret trip to china. We stopped off in paris publicly. Dick, you might explain how we managed to have a secret negotiation in paris. Well, we had henry having dinner with an attractive young lady who was a correspondent in paris, and that provided a cover for our business. Because since he was having this dinner with this woman, nobody suspected that he might also be having a negotiation with the vietnamese. He was wildly criticized being out with a date. Everybody knew that leonard toe was in town. And why is henry seeing this woman who was a reporter for the New York Times or one of these papers, why is henry having dinner with this woman instead of meeting with leonard toe. Which in fact he had been doing only an hour earlier. But this is the kind of mood that existed at the time it was crazy. There was one very important point, which i think i focused on more than anybody else, though it later became moot, and that was that when henry said that we would do a unilateral withdrawal, that was the first time that we went into the negotiating session with the North Vietnamese at their private villa, that they had tables for us to negotiate. Up until that time we had sat in chairs like this, and the North Vietnamese did not think that was a real negotiation. But once henry said we are prepared to withdraw unilaterally they said, aha, they have come to one of our most basic points and, therefore, we will now have a table. Its these Little Things, again you know, diplomacy is a funny game. You look for Little Things that tell you a great deal about what is behind the thinking of people who are not ready to articulate it. Its kind of tricky. But on the other hand its absolutely essential. Ill quickly mention that when the pentagon papers were released, leaked out, and they were just a review of vietnam situation, military and diplomatic, during the johnson and kennedy years. It had nothing to do with nixon. It wasnt any embarrassment to nixon. He got hammered for opposing the leak of these papers as if he was trying to cover things up. It was just making his predecessors look bad. He felt it was an important principle, one to only classify documents. Him and kissinger were particularly upset. Because june 71 was precisely a month before we were going to china secretly and were in the middle of these promising negotiations with the vietnamese. So they were doing this on behalf of their successors where you try to keep some relevant secrets but also the timing was atrocious. Are you going to talk about china . Yeah, were now getting to that. In fall of 1971 you think things are going well, but the North Vietnamese, you detect, are gearing up for another offensive. Right. Then lets go to 1972. That was the momentous year for a lot of reason as professor smyser pointed out, nixon went in february, moscow in june. He went to moscow the end of april. The watergate breakin occurred at roughly the same time. And then in november there was a landslide reelection of nixon. I know we have to get through this, but weve got to circle back to the spring of 71 when the North Vietnamese unleashed a major offensive spring of 72. But they were gearing up to it by the end of 1971. Lets go through 1972. That was the big year. January 72 nixon goes public with the secret talks. He gave a speech january 25th because in the preceding month, despite this promise over the summer with the sevenpoint plan, the North Vietnamese began to back away, delayed any further talks, started gearing up for a military offensive and we would continue to get hammered by our domestic audiences about not negotiating seriously. He decided we had to finally go public with the fact that we had been negotiating for two or three years and it was North Vietnam, and he laid out a sevenpoint plans to make clear how reasonable we were and put pressure on hanoi. It did rally American Public opinion a great deal. For a while. For a while. So thats january. Thats january. The North Vietnamese did not respond. They launched this offensive. We had one last chance and a secret trip to moscow. Let me pick up before that, because that is critical. Its i believe march 30th of 1972 that they launch the offensive. It was easter, and there are a lot of catholics in vietnam. It was called the easter offensive. And it was major, frontally, it was right across the dmz. They actually came up against a pretty good ar vent division, and we knew everything we had at this offensive, and actually over a period of time succeeded in turning it around. It was not a bad test of vietnamization. It required a lot of our air support. But it was a major, major effort and a precursor of what ultimately happened in vietnam. The North Vietnamese were willing to send conventional forces across the border. Lets go back one month. It was the 1972 february trip where nixon went to china. You went with him. What impact did that have on vietnam, if any . We do know the chinese weighed in with the vietnamese, but not in a way that would be overly pressuring. This was to have our relationship with china not complicated by the vietnam war with american troops on the border. They wanted to balance the soviet union and we knew we wouldnt be an effective global balance. The chinese had an interest in having us end this war. We tried to make clear to them, henry did i think with success, that were willing to get out and get our prisoners back and ceasefire, not willing to overthrow the government. Its not in our interest to make the u. S. Look like an unreliable ally because you want us to help balance the soviets. We know the chinese took some trips to hanoi and did weigh in. They probably said wait the americans out, get them out of vietnam, dont insist on manipulation in the political settlement. In a few years saigon will fall in your laps anyway. Goo a go ahead, excuse me no, go ahead. I dont want to dominate too much here. We also also with the russians the secret trip in april to set up the may summit with the russians, another isolation of hanoi. We try to get them to get the vietnamese to meet with us. Already the offensive was taking place. We had one may 2nd meeting with North Vietnam we got nowhere. As a result of this we decided to bomb hanoi and mine hai fong. This is an important point. The chronology is nixon goes in february. The North Vietnamese invade South Vietnam in a spring offensive a month later. Youre already negotiating with a planned trip to moscow to have nixon go visit moscow for the moscow summit. The North Vietnamese look like theyre winning, as you said. So what went around the thinking of nixons decision to then escalate . You want to take that one . Well, it was a very important weekend. He did it on the 8th of may. In the preceding days we had some meetings. I remember general hague calling me in on a friday afternoon. I was about to go to new york. He said you better stick around. The president has decided, its a certainty, that hes going to mine hai fong and bomb hanoi. Were going to spend the weekend here doing some staff work and then well have an nsc meeting on monday. And he asked me to write kind of a justification for doing this. And then we what was the background in mining hai fong harbor . It was the largest harbor in North Vietnam. It was the kind of escalation that we had avoided previously. I think mr. Nixon felt that he couldnt go to moscow on his summit with mr. Brezhnev while mr. Brezhnevs client was invading a friend of ours. With russian weapons. Exactly. He had to take some firm action. So we had an nsc meeting that morning and then the action was undertaken. It continued. Tell me about those five or six days then. President nixon decided we were going to bomb hanoi, mine hai fong harbor knowing that maybe the moscow summit hung in the balance. So what did kissinger talk to you . What did he say to you to get your advice . Ill pass this back to winston except to say that, yes, that saturday we had a meeting in the situation room with all of henrys closest staff. We may have different memories of peoples positions. I think most people were in favor of doing this both for military reasons to blunt the North Vietnamese offensive and they understood nixons view that you dont go to russia looking weak while your american soldiers are getting killed by russian weapons. As i recall it, you correct me with your memory, almost everybody thought this would be the end of the moscow summit, that the russians wouldnt greet nixon in moscow when hes bombing especially the ships. One of the ships got hit by accident which didnt help. People thought the summit would be either canceled or said its a good chance its going to be canceled. I distinctly remember nixon saying no, the russians have too much at stake with us bilaterally. An theyll go ahead despite this and ill look much better being strong as i go there. Whereas others felt, okay, we should do this, but were going to lose the arms control agreement, berlin agreement, all the other things we worked out particularly with the russians. I remember going in a helicopter with henry up to camp david to help write the speech an announcing hanoi and hai fong. This was a couple days in early may. Henry and i were depressed on the aircraft, not that we were against what was going to happen, but all the work on the russian front was going to go down the tube. Nixon was right. We were wrong. We went ahead with the summit. We ought to let john we have slightly different recollections of the saturday meeting. I felt there were more opinions expressed to the effect that the summit is not likely to be canceled including from helmet seinfeld who was the european director and John Holdridge who was the asia man. Be that as it may, i also attended the nsc meeting on monday and i recall henry saying that he thought there was a 50 50 chance. So kissinger the small inner circle took you into the white house situation room and said this is what the president s decided, what do you think . Yeah, basically. What do you think is going to happen . He also consuled us consulted us before the president. Nixon never wavered. This is an interesting point. This is a very courageous decision. He was willing to risk the moscow summit. In his mind he wasnt risking it much. People go back and say was it kissinger, was it nixon . The golden this was nixon supported by kissinger. Its very hard sometimes to distinguish the two. I want to add one thing on china. When kissinger went to china on the secret trip, he took me with him which rather surprised me because i wasnt working on china, wynn was. The interesting thing about it to me was at a certain point we began talking about vietnam, and he mentioned a number of key points. Afterwards kissinger asked me, is there anything in his key points which deviates in a substantial way from what the vietnamese are saying . I said no, he is taking exactly the same line. To me that meant that we could not count on the chinese to pull our irons out of the fire on vietnam. I think that was a key point. Well, they wouldnt pull irons out of the fire. A little more nuance. First of all, joe and i have to send his transcript to annoy. Thats right. Secondly, i do think and it was shown that they werent going to pull our irons out of the fire. To the extent, as i said earlier, they could get us out of vietnam and away from their borders in a way that wouldnt undercut our world credibility and balancing of the soviet union, it was worth it for the i think they did argue to hanoi, dont make them overthrow, settle for a military settlement. Youll get your prize in the long run. That was an important modification. So lets flash forward. That was talking about vietnam with the chinese a year before. But then when you went to moscow, did you also talk yeah. So nixon was right. Moscow was a very different kettle of fish. Nixon called the bluff. The trip was on. The russians, the soviet union did not object. Now youre in moscow. We had one seminal meeting on vietnam with brezhnev, costigan, aleksandrov, their National Security adviser and their interpreter. It was the president , it was henry and it was winston and myself. We had a nice long fourhour thing where they basically vented about vietnam. I think the longer they spoke, the clearer it was its again this question of sending the transcript t