The 1970 five saigon evacuation one of the saddest moments of his life, but insisted he has no regrets. Lbjinger sat down with president ial Library Director as part of a threeday conference in austin texas that organizers call the vietnam war summit. Then took questions from the audience. We will hear first from several introductory speakers, including it is my honor and privilege to introduce Henry Kissinger. He was a relatively young ,rofessor at Harvard University and i was a low Ranking Member of white house staff. In july, 1967, dr. Kissinger was a top secret channel for president johnson. Through french intermediaries, with north vietnamese Prime Minister, and the aging ho chi minh. Through dr. Kissinger, president johnson offered a bombing halt, if a secession cessation of bombing would lead to productive discussions between the United States and hanoi. President johnson even proposed a direct meeting between dr. Kissinger and hanois representatives. And as a goodfaith measure, president johnson unilaterally halted bombing in the vicinity of hanoi. The north vietnamese response was entirely negative. And i quote. We can neither received mr. Kissinger, nor comment on the american views as transmitted through this channel. In a very highly classified meeting in the cabinet room on october 18, 1967, president johnson, secretary of state and, secretary of defense Robert Mcnamara asked dr. Kissinger to make one more attempt. The north vietnamese response, and i quote, theres no reason for us to talk again. What we soon learned was that hanoi was planning a massive, allout assault throughout vietnam. A sledgehammer blow designed to shatter the north Vietnamese Army and to hopefully drive United States out. Hanalei launched its offensive. Massive thanore the cia or our military leadership than anticipated. President johnson and all of us around him were the north vietnamese attacked 36 of phenoms 42 prevention capitals and five of the six largest cities. Thousands were killed. But the United States forces prevailed and won every single battle, including a massive le despite his best efforts, the kessinger parish channel was killed as well. In my opinion, no two men so would have honorable peace in vietnam as did dr. Kissing good kissinger. Dr. Kissinger and president president advise johnson at the ranch just a few days before his death that what they thought would be an honorable Peace Agreement was about to be signed. The Peace Agreement was violated by hanalei and completely disregarded within months of its signing. People, especially , antiwarar activists activists everywhere, especially on american campuses and the American Congress and the american press. It had all of the lord it could take. United states troops did not lose the war. Literally won every engagement. After eight long years most americans had lost the will to fight. The price had come unacceptably high. They never seem to lose their well to continue the war until they had reunited. I know there are men and women who continue to disagree with Henry Kissinger. Yet i will assure you that he and lbj also wanted peace as , and honorabled peace that would stop the war and permit the people of South Vietnam to remain free from communism. And from totalitarian rule. How do i know . I know because i was there. I know because i took the nose of their conversations. I read the transcripts of their telephone calls, sometimes without dr. Kissing her. I served as a link until president johnson died. They both wanted an honorable peace. Dr. Kissinger won the nobel prize. It after you see presentation, a video after he negotiated that peace treaty with reagan i will introduce him to you. Thank you. The United States is seeking we had many armistice peace that we have loss. Therefore it is our Firm Intention in our relationship to the democratic republic of to move from a hostility to normal sanctions, but hostility to normalization. And to cooperation. We believe under conditions of , we can contribute throughout into china to a realization of the humane aspirations of all the people of china. And we will perform our traditional roles of helping people realize these aspirations ladies and gentlemen please welcome the former secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. Dr. Kissinger, welcome. It is a privilege to have you on the stage. Peoplethe things i think dont realize is you are not only the National Security to president nixon but also a parttime consultant to president kennedy and president johnson. Any living person, i think you saw all the principal commanders of chief around vietnam. Each of thosebout men and what categorize their position on the war . first of all let me say what an honor it is for me to be here. And to participate in a needed to which is heal wounds about vietnam. I want to congratulate the library for organizing this and providing the opportunity. It is symbolic that secretary kerry is coming here tomorrow. Ight he was Walking Around with plaque is outside the white house. The point i want to make is we and hecome good friends came to my 90th Birthday Party and it was out a pity we did not have an to talk rather than in that each other time. In that spirit, he and i have worked together when he was chairman of the Foreign Relations committee, and i greatly respect his efforts now, its very meaningful to this conference would end with his speech by this distinguished leader of america now. Now, to answer your question. In the Kennedy Administration, vietnam was at first a relatively peripheral issue. The dominant concern about indochina in the Kennedy Administration was the future of laos. Because they, in turn, have received the advice from president eisenhower in the transition that the future of laos might determine the future of vietnam. Then, as the administration went on, there was a document that the chinese produced, who was these the successor to mao, sing the whole world is going to be characterized by the struggle of the countryside against the cities. In the Kennedy Administration tended to interpret what was going on in indochina as part of that process. In those days, we had only a few thousand advisors. But the number was increased to about 50,000. In the Kennedy Administration. But it was not yet a central obsession of american foreignpolicy. Then, Lyndon Johnson inherited a situation in which the government of vietnam had been overthrown, the north vietnamese had infiltrated the regular divisions, not just guerrilla forces. If i could observe Lyndon Johnson thought he was carrying out the spirit of the policy that had been started by president kennedy, when he ordered the intrigue of forces. And then gradually, as the administration went on, the president who all his life and been known as concerned primarily with domestic policy was engulfed in a division of the country that, in a way, has lasted to this day in its perception of foreignpolicy. And i must say, he was anguished person. Because he wanted peace. With his notions of peace were that you made a compromise. And that is the one thing that the north via minis vietnamese were never prepared to do. I became involved, because the normal attempt to achieve negotiations had all been blocked. I was at that time a professor of harvard with no standing in the hierarchy in washington. I attended a scientific conference in europe, and at that conference, there were two individuals who talked to me. Because they knew i had been in vietnam for a few weeks. Earlier that year. At the invitation of the ambassador. One of these two people have been the host of ho chi minh, when ho chi minh lived in paris for a year. To negotiate peace with the french. He offered to go to vietnam and call on his acquaintance on behalf of peace for the United States. I called up secretary mcnamara to tell him about this. Secretary mcnamara discuss the matter with president johnson. And amazingly, president johnson entrusted a professor at harvard, which was not the constituency that most favored him, with being an intermediary to two frenchmen that no one had ever heard of before. They were sent off with a message from president johnson, to ho chi minh. Then outlined the circumstances under which you would prepared to make peace. And they were relieved they were received by ho chi minh. And they came back with a reply which, after six years of negotiations, in various administrations, we learned, was a typical north vietnamese vague reply that basically rejected the proposal, but made it sound as if maybe there was something. So they brought back that reply. I wont go through all the details. But i was sent back with another message. None of this happened that i ever saw a vietnamese negotiated. I just visited these frenchmen, and they went to the vietnamese. After a while, we realized that they were stalling. I mention this only to show the dedication of president johnson. To achieve an honorable negotiated peace from the very beginning. President nexen have the problem of how he inherited the war. There were already 500 plus troops in vietnam. He had the same issue as president johnson how you end this war . And have you withdraw these troops without leaving to a collapse of the whole structure in indochina . And as some of our allies in the rest of south asia were telling us, the collapse of the whole structure. You can ask me questions about individual decisions. They were taken, and president ford was president in the very last phase. Of the war. I want to say the very end, when it was obvious that we were talking only about the evacuation of the last batch of civilians that were stuck at the airport in saigon, i called him and said we have to transmit the evacuation of saigon. If you read that phone conversation between him and me, he realized that we had to leave. But he wanted to squeeze out another 12 hours to see whether we can rescue a few more people. So all the president s were haunted in their way. Each of them were dedicated to finding a peaceful solution. Each of them have the dilemma of how do you relate american honor to the ending of the war . That was the dilemma. There was nobody who wanted more , there was nobody who wanted to escalate the war. They all wanted peace. But the question was, under what conditions can you do that without turning over the millions who had relied on the word of previous president s but committed themselves . Mr. Updegrove let me go back to john f. Kennedy. There is widespread speculation that had he not been assassinated, president kennedy would have reversed course and withdrawn troops from vietnam, despite any evidence to that end. Is there anything you saw from president kennedy that would suggest that over time, he would have withdrawn our support for the war in vietnam . Dr. Kissinger i have never seen the slightest evidence of this. It is possible to say that he might would have done this. But all the moves of the Kennedy Administration while kennedy was alive were in the direction of increasing our commitments. And not diminishing it. All based on the belief that it was as simple a problem a simpler problem that it turned out to be. Ive never seen as piece of paper that would indicate this, and all of the chief advisers of president kennedy who were taken over by president johnson when he became president were unanimous in both presidencies. In supporting it, until things got very difficult. And then, divisions appeared. But i have never seen them i know of no evidence. Mr. Updegrove Lyndon Johnson was a domestic policy sage. He knew how to get deals done, he knew instantly what to do. There are many who think that he was out of his depth in terms of Foreign Policy. What is your view of johnson as a foreignpolicy president . Dr. Kissinger president johnson was saddled with the war from the first day in office. See cant really judge so you cant really judge the foreignpolicy tendencies of a president who was swallowed up, in a way, by the war. Without any question, johnson was a master in knowing the nuances of domestic policy. And he did not know the foreign leaders as well as he did the domestic constituencies. And so it didnt come as naturally to him as it did with domestic policy. But on the foreignpolicy issues , other than the war in vietnam, he had a very Good Relationship with our allies. And our enemies, he was very eager to come to some agreement with the soviet union, but everything was so overlaid by the war in vietnam. I thought president johnson was a formidable individual. Of, and some ways, it was a personal tragedy that he spent so much of his life to achieve that office, in order to be compelled to do the things that had not been his major focus. But i thought he was a strong figure, and i felt Great Respect and affection. Mr. Updegrove it is long been alleged that Richard Nixons campaign tampered with the Peace Process by sending an emissary to the south the minis South Vietnamese. What is your view on that . Dr. Kissinger i have no personal knowledge if whether that contact actually took lace. Took place in the way it has been alleged. But assuming the story is essentially correct, i do not believe that whatever nixon did had any of the consequences that have been alleged. You have to remember, this aspect of our relationship with the vietnamese the vietnamese allies were always in a nearly desperate position. They needed our help is an essential component. So when the Peace Process was going on, they had a tendency to agree to provisions we put forward on the theory that the north vietnamese would obvious that take them. In 1968, we experienced what nixon then experienced four years later, that when the point came actually to undertake negotiations, they would have to assume responsibility for the outcome. Then come the South Vietnamese leaders felt it necessary to demonstrate to their own people that they hadnt just been forced by the United States to do this, and so they started a debate about something that i am sure president johnson in his day and i know, president x thought had already been settled. One of the key issues was actually to sit down at the table, and that of course then reduce the necessity for the South Vietnamese to sit down at the same table with the people who have been fighting to overthrow them. From the South Vietnamese communist side. So, when that issue arose as a consequence of the negotiations, the president doug in and started a debate about the way the negotiations would even start. We faced exactly the same thing in a different way for years later. With the north vietnamese, without the South Vietnamese had agreed to each of the terms when we had discussed them. But then when they were actually put forward, we went through six weeks of controversy about nuances. That would have happened whether nixon wrote his note or not. Secondly, some delay between the announcement in the sitting down was, in my opinion, inevitable. But theres one other thing to remember. Its often alleged that peace could have been made if somehow they had all sat at the same table. It was absolutely no chance of this whatsoever. Because on november 3, two days after these announcements were made, the vietnamese made changes that they never changed for the rest of the Johnson Administration and the rest of the next administration, which were United States had to withdraw totally, and former Coalition Government noted by communists before any negotiation could take place, about anything else. So the Johnson Administration officials, at that time was of the position of the north vietnamese had to withdraw before any withdrawal of american troops could even take place. Those conditions were maintained for the rest of the Johnson Administration. And they were the principal obstacle to the failure of the negotiations in the next administration, until the vietnamese were defeated in the sequel to the tet offensive, where johnson mentioned, because the one thing that the next administration would not concede, it said that we would overthrow and allied governments that had supported the United States in reliance on promises made by a other president s. And as soon as the north vietnamese agreed that the existing government could stay, which was at the very end of the nixon administration, a settlement was achieved. I mention it only because america should not torture itself on the view that it could have had a settlement earlier, if their president had been more willing. They could not have had settlements except for just selling out, which no one would have supported. Mr. Updegrove bob halderman, president nixons chief of staff, said in a 1978 Television Interview that nixon had no intention of quickly pulling out of vietnam. He aimed to explore the rivalry between china and the soviet union to improve relations. Vietnam was an expedient where americas bona fide intentions and motives were being acted out. Nixon believed that america had to negotiate from strength to prove its willingness to fight,