Now, let’s look at that just a moment again, think about it some more, but . . . let’s be perfectly . . . cold-blooded about it. If you look at it from the standpoint of our game . . . with the Soviets and the Chinese, from the standpoint of running this country . . . I think we could take, in my view, almost anything, frankly, that we can force on [Nguyen Van] Thieu. Almost anything. I just come down to that. You know what I mean? Because I have a feeling we would not be doing, like I feel about the Israeli, I feel that in the long run we’re probably not doing them an in— . . . a disfavor due to the fact that I feel that the North Vietnamese are so badly hurt that the South Vietnamese are probably going to do fairly well. [Kissinger attempts to interject.] But also due to the fact—because I look at the tide of history out there—South Vietnam probably can never even survive anyway. I’m just being perfectly candid. I—

In the pull-out area—

[Unclear] we’ve got to be—if we can get certain guarantees so that they aren’t . . . as you know, looking at the foreign policy process, though, I mean, you’ve got to be—we also have to realize, Henry, that winning an election is terribly important. It’s terribly important this year . . . but can we have a viable foreign policy if a year from now or two years from now, North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam? That’s the real question.

If a year or two years from now North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam, we can have a viable foreign policy if it looks as if it’s the result of South Vietnamese incompetence. If we now sell out in such a way that, say, within a three- to four-month period, we have pushed President Thieu over the brink—we ourselves—I think, there is going to be—even the Chinese won’t like that. I mean, they’ll pay verbal—verbally, they’ll like it.

But it’ll worry them.

But it will worry everybody. And domestically in the long run it won’t help us all that much because our opponents will say we should’ve done it three years ago.

I know.

So we’ve got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which—after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle it, say, this October, by January ’74 no one will give a damn.

Yeah, having in mind the fact that, you know, as we all know, the—the analogy—comparison [to] Algeria is not on—is not at all for us. But on the other hand, nobody gives a goddamn about what happened to Algeria—

Mm-hmm.

—after they got out. [chuckling] You know what I mean? But Vietnam, I must say . . . Jesus, they’ve fought so long, dying, and now . . . I don’t know.