“Our Terms Will Eventually Destroy Him”

October 6, 1972, 9:30 a.m., the Oval Office. The national security adviser needed a decision. In twenty-four hours he would be on a plane to Paris. Kissinger thought Hanoi was ready to settle on the terms that he and Nixon had been seeking for years. The question now was whether Nixon was willing to settle. Kissinger had to know.

[]Kissinger: I read Haig’s transcript, and these guys are scared. And they’re desperate. And they know what’s coming. And Thieu says that, sure, this—these proposals keep him going, but somewhere down the road he’ll have no choice except to commit suicide. And he’s probably right. I mean, we—

President Nixon: Let’s talk among ourselves [unclear].

Kissinger: We have to be honest—

President Nixon: Right.

Kissinger: —among ourselves.1

The president wanted to talk about his opponent’s latest attack. In a speech outlining his vision of American foreign policy, McGovern “returned repeatedly to Vietnam as an example of what he described as the moral bankruptcy of the Nixon administration,” the New York Times reported.2

“All this is about is morality right now,” said the president.

“What’s our crime?” asked Kissinger. “That we don’t want to destroy—”

“[Unclear] that is the morality. We don’t want him to—him personally or the 17 million South Vietnamese collectively—to commit suicide!”

“That’s right.”

“Or to be murdered. Now, that’s all this thing is about.”

“That is true.”

“And goddamn, if that isn’t morality …,” said the president.

The adviser gingerly began circling back from what they wanted to what they were going to get. “Everything that we ever planned for is happening. The Russians are pressing them. The Chinese are pressing them,” said Kissinger. “VIP planes going back and forth between Peking, Moscow, and Hanoi.” Le Duc Tho was peppering him with messages. “And I actually think we can settle it. On terms, however.”

“On our terms,” said the president, “but not Thieu’s.”

“On close to our terms,” said Kissinger. “And I also think that Thieu is right, that our terms will eventually destroy him.”

“You’re convinced of that, Henry?” asked Nixon, as if they’d never discussed it.

“Not that they shouldn’t,” said Kissinger. “But given their weakness, their disunity, it will have that consequence.”

“And their fear. Fear. Fear,” said Nixon.

“And it will be the consequence,” Kissinger repeated. No one could say he hadn’t warned the president that their settlement terms would destroy South Vietnam.

Kissinger took aim at the notion of continuing to bomb and mine the North for another six months after the election. “Now, the thing that makes it anguishing is that, supposing we don’t settle,” said Kissinger, “I don’t see that we’re better off six months from now.”

The president didn’t accept that. “The chances are better than even that we will not be better off [in] six months, but there is a chance that we could be better off. There is a chance,” said Nixon. “It might be effective. We’ve never done anything militarily that’s worth a shit in North Vietnam, except the mining.”

“Yeah, but we won’t do it this time, either,” said Kissinger.

“Let’s see. Let’s see what we’ll do.”

“I’ve had it studied,” said Kissinger. Six more months of fighting would improve South Vietnam’s situation, but North Vietnam would still hold American prisoners of war. Should the bombing become too much for the North Vietnamese—and it hadn’t so far—they could stop it by offering a simple trade: release of the POWs in return for American withdrawal. “I think at this point, we have to take that,” said Kissinger.

“We will. I’d take it today,” said Nixon.

“Well, I don’t think that we can do before the election,” said Kissinger.

The president agreed. “I mean, I’d take it in November, December, January,” said Nixon. “That’s a deal we have to take, Henry.”

“That’s right, but that will also collapse the South Vietnamese,” said Kissinger. Without a settlement, there would be no “decent interval.” Nixon would bring the troops and POWs home while the fighting between North and South continued—until Saigon collapsed. In that case, Kissinger said, as if to soften the blow, “we won’t be so responsible for the whole settlement.” There wouldn’t be a settlement. Just a retreat followed by quick defeat.

“Well, if they’re that collapsible, maybe they just have to be collapsed,” said the president. “We cannot keep this child sucking at the tit when the child is four years old.”

Did Nixon truly mean that? The national security adviser tried a different tack. “See, what we can get out of a settlement now—I’m not even sure it’s going to help you politically. You can judge better whether you will wind up like Churchill,” said Kissinger. After Winston Churchill led Great Britain to victory against Nazi Germany, voters tossed him out of office in the first postwar election.

“I don’t want it before the election, Henry,” said the president.

Kissinger didn’t point out that, less than twenty-four hours earlier in this very office, the president had told a news conference that “under no circumstances will the timing of a settlement” at all “be affected by the fact that there is going to be an election November 7.”3 It was front-page news. “Election, Peace Bid Separated,” said the Washington Post.4 Over a long public career Nixon had developed total immunity to irony.

“Well, if we keep going, you may have no choice,” said Kissinger. “You may get it before the election.” Hanoi was about to meet his demands. Nixon could hardly reject a settlement on his own terms.5 That would appear to confirm McGovern’s charge that he wasn’t willing to end the war.

“Well, let’s try our best not to have it before the election,” said Nixon. “The more that we can stagger past the election, the better.”

“You do not want it before the election,” said Kissinger.

“Well, I don’t want it before the election with a Thieu blowup,” said Nixon. If Thieu said in public what he was saying in private—that the settlement terms would destroy the government that more than fifty thousand Americans had died defending—then, as Nixon said, “it’s going to hurt us very badly.”

“Well, we may be able to avoid a Thieu blowup,” said Kissinger. “I’ve taken the liberty of sending Thieu two letters from you in each of these last two days.” In one “personal message from the president,” Kissinger told Thieu the opposite of what he’d just told Nixon about Saigon’s survival under a settlement:

There is no doubt that there are serious disagreements between us, but it should be clearly understood that these disagreements are tactical in character and involve no basic difference as to the objectives we both seek—the preservation of a non-Communist structure in South Vietnam which we have so patiently built together and which your heroic leadership has preserved against the most difficult of trials.6

The message included a veiled threat: “In this context, I would urge you to take every measure to avoid the development of an atmosphere which could lead to events similar to those which we abhorred in 1963 and which I personally opposed so vehemently in 1968.” In 1963, President Kennedy had given the green light to a plot by South Vietnamese generals to overthrow a previous president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem.7 In 1968, there were unfounded rumors of an American coup plot against Thieu himself.8

In truth, Nixon and Kissinger couldn’t afford a coup in South Vietnam. Not that they hadn’t considered it. The question was so delicate that the one administration document to address it directly remained unsigned and named no agency of origin. The NSC considered the analysis important enough to stamp it “Secret Sensitive” and keep it with a set of negotiating records earmarked “For the President’s Files.” According to that document:

The U.S. certainly holds the power to remove Thieu or force his resignation and could probably bring this about in fairly short order merely by stating publicly that the U.S. no longer desired to have Thieu as president, or by stating the same thing privately to Thieu and half a dozen other South Vietnamese political and military leaders. At that point, Thieu would lose the support of other key South Vietnamese military and political leaders, and his departure from the scene would only be a matter of time. With Thieu having been removed in such a fashion, however, it would almost certainly be impossible to prevent the rest of South Vietnam’s governmental structure from falling apart.9

Bottom line: No Thieu, no decent interval. Nixon and Kissinger had to live with him, because without him the South would die too soon.

Kissinger had also instructed Ambassador Bunker to deliver an unveiled threat. If Saigon broke its silence, America would go it alone:

Thieu must understand that a public confrontation with us would lead to complete disaster. Our only option in that event would be a unilateral disengagement. Please recall to Thieu that our concern is not with the effects on the election but rather with building a platform from which we can take the kind of action we want in the post-election period. If there is [a] public confrontation with [us] now, it will make it absolutely impossible [ev]en to maintain the present level of our military action after the election, much less to step it up. It is almost incomprehensible to the president how the GVN [Government of South Vietnam], after all the risks he has run, could behave so insensitively.10

It wasn’t so incomprehensible. Kissinger agreed that Thieu was right: their settlement terms would destroy the South. He and Nixon simply couldn’t afford to let Thieu say so in public. So he had Ambassador Bunker make the argument that merely revealing this view (that Kissinger secretly shared) would lose the war: “Both the future of South Vietnam and a viable US foreign policy in the world are at stake here. The movement toward a confrontation between us must end if we are not to throw away ten years of effort and the lives of thousands which have been devoted to securing the future we have both sought.”11

Kissinger hoped to conciliate the South with “security guarantees.” One addressed the Ho Chi Minh Trail. For more than a decade Hanoi had been using the border areas of Laos and Cambodia to spirit soldiers and supplies into South Vietnam. Publicly, Nixon stressed the necessity of securing the border, arguing that “we could never succeed as long as we did not seal off the infiltration routes through Laos and Cambodia.”12 His first major decision on the war as president was to start secretly bombing the infiltration routes in Cambodia with B-52s. In 1970, he ordered American troops into Cambodia “to clean out major enemy sanctuaries.”13 In 1971, he backed a South Vietnamese ground offensive in Laos and Cambodia with American airpower. These surges produced short-term results. All disrupted the flow of men and material into the South. None came close to stopping it. Nixon would claim to have “cut” the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but that was a metaphor without real meaning.14 The border was a thousand miles along. How do you cut that? Not even B-52s could level an area that vast. Ground offensives captured more supplies and killed more soldiers—until the offensives ended, as all must, and American and South Vietnamese troops withdrew back across the border. Then the infiltration resumed. Hanoi managed to replace its losses in a matter of months.

At the negotiating table, Kissinger would seek “a commitment by the North Vietnamese to withdraw from Laos and Cambodia.”

[]President Nixon: I’d get the commitment. I wouldn’t worry about it. They’re never going to withdraw.

Kissinger: No, but I’ll get it in writing and we’ll—

President Nixon: Right, right, right.15

So much for cutting the Ho Chi Minh Trail. With the paper commitment in hand, Nixon would at least be able to claim he’d finally achieved the goal of closing it. In reality, it would remain open for business, as he privately acknowledged.

Another “security guarantee” would address the heart of the matter: the continued presence of North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam. The threat that, according to the consensus of military, diplomatic, and intelligence advisers in NSSM-1, Saigon couldn’t withstand without American ground troops. Kissinger would ask Hanoi to bring some of its troops home: “They withdraw from—some of their units from the South.”

“Some of their units, right,” said the president.

“They won’t withdraw them all,” said Kissinger.

Kissinger’s security guarantees all had one thing in common: they wouldn’t guarantee Saigon’s security.

The national security adviser had one more card to play: “As I look at it from a historical point of view, what did [French president Charles] de Gaulle do in Algeria, who everyone thinks a great man? Basically, he made a settlement that turned the country over to the—to his enemies.” De Gaulle had ended Algeria’s war for independence by putting it up for a vote. No surprise who won. Algerians outnumbered French colons and voted, as they had fought, to end colonial rule. With de Gaulle’s backing, France in referendum also endorsed independence.

It wasn’t the best analogy. Unlike Algeria, South Vietnam wouldn’t get to vote on its fate. Its electoral commission, requiring unanimity to do anything, was designed to deadlock. North and South would fight it out after American troops left, and, as Kissinger had pointed out twice in this conversation, the North would win. Americans would not get to vote on this “decent interval” exit strategy; the White House kept its very existence a secret, all records of it highly classified.

But Kissinger wasn’t appealing to logic. He was invoking the name of a man Nixon viewed as a role model, almost a hero. Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (Nixon savored his full name, redolent of ancient Gaul and Charlemagne) dazzled the American president as “a larger-than-life figure,” “a living legend,” and “a master of illusion.” De Gaulle asserted control over his image to a degree Nixon could only envy, scripting his press conferences (not just the answers, but the questions his aides planted), memorizing speeches so France would not see he needed glasses to read, and generally exuding grandeur.16 Nixon would never forget the splendid climax de Gaulle provided to his first trip abroad as president: the honor guard and red-carpet welcome when Air Force One touched down at Orly Airport.17 The roads of Paris were completely cleared in both directions to make way for the motorcade sweeping the Americans off to the Quai d’Orsay Palace.18 Dinner at the Élysée Palace, lunch at Versailles. Above all, Nixon prized the time he spent alone with de Gaulle, enthralled by the older man’s political wisdom. “I make policies for the newspapers of the day after tomorrow,” de Gaulle told him. It would be better for the United States to recognize China now, when it didn’t have to, than later, when Chinese growth would make recognition a necessity, de Gaulle advised. And he urged Nixon to get out of Vietnam as quickly as possible, though not “with undue haste.” He held up Algeria as a precedent.19 Three years later in Beijing, Zhou Enlai had also urged him to follow de Gaulle’s Algerian example.20

Nixon would always remember de Gaulle’s private parting words in March 1969, when the French president broke protocol to personally escort the American to the airport. As the limousine carried them through the mists of Paris, de Gaulle turned to Nixon, took his hand, and said, “You look young and vigorous and in command. This is important. Stay that way.”21

“Let me gallivant around in a different way,” Nixon told Kissinger. “Vietnam is important because, of course, of our prisoners and, of course, because we don’t want 17 million people to come under Communists, but … However, those, basically, are not the really important issues. The important issue is how the United States comes out in two ways.

“One: whether or not the United States in all parts of the world—whether our enemies, the neutrals, and our allies after we finish—are convinced that the United States went the extra mile in standing by its friends. That doesn’t mean we have to succeed. It does mean that we have to have done that.

“Second point: Now, the historical process moves extremely slowly,” Nixon said. A lot could happen within the South Vietnamese government. Someone could retire or be exiled. There could be a coup. “I think the North Vietnamese are hurting one hell of a lot more than the CIA indicates. I think our whole bureaucracy previously overestimated how badly they were hurting and now they’re underestimating how badly they’re hurting, because we’re doing it. The mining has had to hurt them. The bombing has had to hurt them. It’s supposed to be pretty good. It’s just got to have done it,” said Nixon. “Now, they’re hurting, and hurting badly.”

[]President Nixon: Let us suppose, putting it quite coldly, that we face a situation here where South Vietnam simply, over the long haul, cannot survive on its own as an independent entity. I don’t mean like Thailand, where we can get a guarantee. I don’t mean like [unclear]. But that South Vietnam, because of its—the nature of the South Vietnamese people, the nature of the struggle with the North and so forth, that inevitably, unless the United States can stay in there indefinitely, South Vietnam is going to fall.

All right, if that is the case, then what we have to look to is the bigger subject: How does the United States look in the way it handles this goddamn thing? So as I see it, the thing to do is to look as well as we can and hope and pray for the best. And then use our influence with the Russians and with the Chinese, which should be considerable at this point, and say, “Now, damn it, you push us here, you know, we contribute—we just cannot be pushed too far.” Understand?

Kissinger: Yes.22

If he had wanted, Kissinger could have demolished the president’s reasoning. He knew the way the United States looked to Moscow and Beijing. Its government had long ago informed the Soviets and the Chinese that North Vietnam could take over the South without fear of American intervention as long as it waited a “decent interval.” This was a secret from America’s citizens, but not from its most powerful adversaries.

Kissinger, however, wasn’t there to win an argument. He’d gotten what he came for: the go-ahead to make the deal.

“I almost think that that’s what we’re looking at,” said Nixon. Having passed the point of no return, Nixon exercised the presidential prerogative of hedging a little: “My own view is this, that when Defense is planning for three more years of bombing, when they want to keep two more carriers out there, three more air wings and all that sort of thing, it makes me think that the military isn’t particularly interested in finishing this goddamn war.” The military, of course, wasn’t going to decide when America’s war would end; that decision rested in the hands of the commander in chief.

Nixon’s moment of truth had come and gone. At least he wasn’t talking about the need for Saigon to survive, “period.” Kissinger egged him on: “The military are a bunch of selfish bastards.”

“They screwed up everything we’ve done,” said the president, “except they did the mining OK.”

One final detail: Hanoi wanted the agreement to bear the signatures of all parties’ foreign ministers. That meant Secretary of State William Rogers would have to sign it for the United States.

“It’s not fair—let him sign it—but we don’t care,” said Nixon.

“Oh, I don’t want to sign the goddamn thing,” said Kissinger. “You should sign it.”

The president declined. “I don’t think we should dignify it by my signing it.”23