I read [Alexander M.] Haig [Jr.]’s transcript, and these guys are scared. And they’re desperate. And they know what’s coming. And [Nguyen Van] 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—

Let’s talk among ourselves [unclear].

We have to be honest—

Right.

—among ourselves.

You know what I think, though, they talk about morality. Henry, if two less moral men were doing—had been here for the last three and a half years, what the Christ? All this is about is morality right now. [Unclear]—

What’s our crime? 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 . . .

That’s—

I don’t see any of the New York Times or others write anything about those 200,000—I guess it was 100,000 like that asshole at State said—200,000 Burundi being eaten.

Yeah.

Goddamn it, they cut their heads off and eat them! That’s right. Oh, well.

Hell, there’s no . . . [chuckles] there’s no question.

Damn tiresome.

If we didn’t have a moral position, it’d be easy.

Well, ours is a moral position. It has been from the beginning—and, incidentally, it must be that the American people have a degree of morality or they wouldn’t have supported us.

Now, the thing that worries me—before we get to the specifics—is that we now got all the steam into the boiler. Everything—

I know.

—that we ever planned for is happening. The Russians are pressing them. The Chinese are pressing them.

The French?

VIP planes going back and forth between Peking, Moscow, and Hanoi. [Anatoly] Dobrynin was in again yesterday. I got another message from Le Duc Tho yesterday.[note 1] Le Duc Tho was a member of Hanoi’s Politburo and conducted the most important negotiation sessions with Kissinger. I’ve had five since the last meeting.

[Unclear.]

And I actually think we can settle it. On terms, however. We’re—

On our terms, on—but not Thieu’s.

On close to our terms. But—and I also think that Thieu is right, that our terms will eventually destroy him.

You’re convinced of that, Henry?

Not that they shouldn’t. If, you know, [President Nixon acknowledges throughout] if this were . . . but given their weakness, their disunity, it will have that consequence.

And their fear. Fear. Fear. They’re scared to death of these people, the North.

And it will be the consequence. Not—we can defend it. Now, the thing that makes it anguishing is that, supposing we don’t settle . . .

Yeah.

I don’t see that we’re better off six months from now. [President Nixon acknowledges.] The only other thing we could—

I would raise one point—one question [unclear]. I would say that I would agree there’s no—there’s—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. We must not underestimate what the—what we do in terms of military action, what its effect might be. 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. I mean—

[Unclear.]

We can do some high-visibility things.

Let’s see. Let’s see what we’ll do.

I’ve had it studied. They’ve fooled our Air Force. They’ve lied to us again. They’ve substituted planes that they told us were better that Haig has found out aren’t nearly so good. We’re dealing with a sick military establishment on top of everything else. We’re going to have funding problems in January. But, of course—but then the dilemma that additional military operations produce for us is this: We can improve the situation in South Vietnam drastically, but we can’t get our prisoners back. And before they collapse they will offer us our prisoners for a—for a withdrawal. And in that case, we’ve got—I think at this point, we have to take that. I—

We will. I’d take it today.

So . . .

They’re not going to offer it, but I’d take it.

So that is—well, I don’t think that we can do before the election.

They’re not going to offer it. That’s what I mean. When I mean today, I mean, I’d take it in November, December, January. Any time.

Yeah.

That’s a deal we have to take, Henry.

That’s right, but that will also collapse the South Vietnamese, except we won’t be so responsible for the whole settlement.

No.

So as I look down the road, I think there is one chance in four.

Well, if they’re that collapsible, maybe they just have to be collapsed. That’s another way to look at it, too. I mean, we have to—we’ve got to remember, we cannot keep this child sucking at the tit when the child is four years old. You know? I mean there—

Well, it’s—

—there comes a time.

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 [Winston S.] Churchill having [unclear]—

[speaking over Kissinger] I don’t want it before the election, Henry. But go ahead.

Well, if we keep going, you may have no choice. You may get it before the election.

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

You do not want it before the election.

Well, I don’t want it before the election with a Thieu blowup. If we do, it’s going to hurt us very badly.

Well, we may be able to avoid a Thieu blowup because what I’m thinking [unclear]—I’m thinking of another strategy now with—

[Unclear] thinking of a private deal.

No, I’m thinking of a strategy in which I present half of our political proposal. Tell them what we—else we can do depends on what security guarantees they give us. Get the security guarantees. Go out to Saigon and say, “We’ve gotten you all these security guarantees. Now you better come the rest of the way.” I’ve taken the liberty of sending Thieu two letters from you in each of these last two days.

Well, you know what I think.

Because you told me, more or less.

Sure, sure, sure, [unclear].

And he’s calming down. He’s calmed down a lot.

And is [Ellsworth] Bunker [unclear] ?

Yes, [unclear] every day. I have told Bunker to see him every other day no matter what.

That’s right, that’s right.

Because we don’t want a blowup.

Bunker has a calming effect on people. The old man does.

And if you have a settlement . . . well, but even a settlement without a blowup might put you in the position of Churchill, where people say you’ve done what you’ve . . . supposed to, but I just don’t see them voting for [George S.] McGovern. You don’t think so.

No, but Churchill didn’t have as much left to do.

That’s right.

He really did. He really did. The making of the peace—that was when he was more desperately needed than any other time, as it turns out, because that poor damn [Harry S.] Truman didn’t know anything. [Josef] Stalin just pulled his pants off at that—

And also, Churchill was known as an arch-reactionary. And he had no domestic support.

Yeah, on his domestic problems. That’s right. He was considered to be just anti-folks.