 Ladies and gentlemen, please stand and welcome Mr. Robert Floyd chair of the Texas Capitol Vietnam Veterans Monument to lead us in the pledge of allegiance Good evening Please join me for the pledge of the legions to our flag. I Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you Please welcome Mr. David Ferriero archivist of the United States Mrs. Linda Johnson Robb daughter of Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson the honorable Hubert Vo member of the Texas House of Representatives and Vietnam immigrants Miss Lucy Baines Johnson daughter of Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson and Dr. Bernard Lefke retired major general of the United States Army and a silver star bronze star and Purple Heart recipient The archive of this library contains thousands of letters to our 36th president many of which concerned the Vietnam War Here are two letters from soldiers stationed in Vietnam during the height of the press of President Johnson's tenure in office Which reflect the dramatically contrasting views of the war held by Americans including our troops Dear mr. President Here's a picture of a little Vietnamese girl and myself She has three older sisters two older brothers and a younger brother They live in a village about eight miles southeast of Da Nang their mother was killed by the VC Because of us she is able to smile It is our duty to keep that smile which portrays so much on her face But there are many more who do not have the freedom smile which she has It is our duty as Americans to bring happiness to those who may otherwise never be as free of care as she To be able to pose with her and have her still look so happy gives the idea of the good We are doing here. This is worth fighting for this is worth dying for I know the weight You must carry on your shoulders, sir, and I pray that God will help you I hope this letter and picture will bring you a blessing. She says the Marines are number one Sincerely ours first corp will leave her in a bonnet US Marine Corps Dear sir, I hope this letter finds the president in the best of health Before I begin allow me to introduce myself I am PFC Nichols United States Marines in Vietnam, and this is the topic of the letter Like most of the servicemen fighting here. I don't fully understand this war We're given training long talks and finally a weapon and told we have a war to fight So the people of Vietnam can have a communist free government in short, sir We're fighting this war for the Vietnamese people and I'd like to know why Why should my buddies and other people's sons have to die fighting for what he doesn't understand or believe in I've been here for seven months and probably will be here until my 13 is Completed if all goes well, but never will be able to understand Why are these Americans and maybe myself must die for people who really don't seem to give a damn Most of us are hoping one day to see our loved ones and to me This seems the most important to most of us and if you were to ask the question What are we fighting for the honest men would tell you to get through these 13 months to get back home? I hope you can understand our feelings and answer our questions in this letter. Thank you, sir for your time The time you've taken to read this letter yours truly PFC Charles E. Nichols United States Marine Corps My I'm going to read two letters from my husband who also was a Marine in Vietnam and We got married in December in Washington and he left in March and He came home on our daughter's six-month birthday This is May 31st 1968 my darling Linda today I was a very lucky man about 11 o'clock this morning I was back at the bunker the battalion CP and walking toward the command bunker when I heard the familiar sound Incoming mortars even before the first round hit I yelled incoming and dived for the nearest hole Just as the first round landed about 20 meters away Within 10 seconds other Marines had dived into the very same hole on top of me Which was only big enough for two people to begin with Rounds continued to land all around us for the next minute or so Then there was a pause of about 30 seconds and one last round landed right on the opposite edge of the Fox hole Fortunately all the shrapnel went forward in the same direction the round was headed and none of it came back into the Fox hole as It was that one round which completely destroyed the two company office structures next to my office and Killed a small dog which was not smart enough to get into a hole when the incoming started My office structure was only slightly damaged and the only Marine casualties from that last round were the two mile concussions suffered by Two men of who piled in on top of me had the round landed just six inches shorter All of us would have been killed Needless to say we all felt very lucky even though there were a few others in the general area who did not fare so well often Chucks company provided security for for the road sweeps and The convoys to the outpost near the Cambodian border and this is an August 5th 1968 letter I Usually outpost the road all the way out and then pick up the troops on tanks and Amtrak's on the way back Otherwise the round trip would take over a day each way. We were a little past the half point Have that halfway point when one of the Amtrak's was blown up by what we later discovered was a command detonated 35-pound box mine Command detonated means it was set off by a person hiding some distance away with a fuse box Instead of a regular pressure or pressure relief mechanism It was immediately engulfed in flames as the mine ignited at least six of the Amtrak's 12 gas tanks I had one entire platoon on the vehicle at the time in addition to a three-man forward air control team and a four-man Amtrak crew The net result was 30 casualties many from shrapnel, but all from burns Just yesterday. I had received a fairly large number of Replacements and it assigned over half of them to this platoon to make up for previous losses Now they're back down to almost nothing again for tomorrow's convoy. I've already made arrangements to borrow a platoon from another company Someone is watching over me personally Because I was on the Amtrak right behind the one the enemy decided to blow up and would have been just as good a target Fortunately the enemy didn't launch a group attack a ground attack to go with it I was very proud of the company again when the chips are down. They're tremendous This is a letter written to President Johnson by a captain of the Republic of Vietnam Army written from a US training base in Alabama on America's 190th birthday July 4th, 1966 4th of July 1966 The honorable Lyndon B. Johnson President of the United States the White House Dear mr. President, I'm captain when taught down of Vietnam now on the training at the US Army Chemical School and Center at Fort McClaren, Alabama. I Am indebted and grateful to you for your recently thoughtfulness speeches Which made me read over and over again US history and its declaration of independence Again, I found you speeches the spirit of liberty. We should meet America strong and free. I Am confident with the generous aids and encouragement of your heroic nation We shall finally emerge victorious in the struggle for freedom and independence Enclose is a study. I have tried to write in English for the first time. I Am taking the liberty to bring to your attention is a token of my appreciation. I Sincerely hope that it may express to you our burning desire to fight for freedom That almost it may serve as a self-explanation of a humble But grateful people who truthfully show his weakness to a true friend in order to be helped more effectively With my very best wishes and respect to you the leader of the free world and to your honorable family May I congratulate you mr. President on the occasion of your independence day? Thank you When Patrick Nugent and I met the summer of 1965 he was graduating from college and already a member of the Air National Guard We married a year later with a dream reception in the White House our first child was nine months old in April of 1968 when Patrick volunteered for Vietnam Patrick did not have to go to war. He went because he wanted to serve his country Like many wives of servicemen, I frequently went home to my parents Lying in my bed in the White House. I often heard the picketers say Hey, hey LBJ. How many boys did you kill today? I lived in the terror of knowing my husband and brothers in law Chuck Robb and Jerry Nugent might be one of those boys For my father it was all so very personal three of our troops in Vietnam were family all Felt like it. It was daddy's constant struggle to bring them home safely and our country to the peace table in January of 1969 Patrick wrote his father-in-law and Commander-in-Chief a letter My father shared it with me because he was so proud of Patrick and Grateful to him his children and I remained so forever 12 January My dear mr. President Chuck and I had a very peaceful and eventful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and a name The highlight of our Yuletide season was a telephone call from you Mrs. Johnson Lucy and Linda Lynn made a strong effort to converse with his daddy But the conversation was one-sided all on his side Someday I look for him to be president of AT&T that is Christmas Day Chuck and I made three stops to distribute the articles he had gathered Our first stop was a small village some 30 miles southwest of Da Nang Where he passed out food and toys to the villagers We then went to the Catholic orphanage in Da Nang and handed out all sorts of toys to the children Our final stop of the day was the Naval Hospital in Da Nang where we visited with the patients in the orthopedic ward We also handed out writing materials and fruit cake Christmas 1968 Will always be a memorable one for two reasons number one it was my first Christmas away from my family and I hope the last and to I was able to help other people appreciate the meaning of Christmas The war activity has increased somewhat since the beginning of the new year Everyone is half expecting some sort of offensive around Tet The hot areas are still located northwest of Saigon along the Cambodian border 10 days ago my aircraft came under mortar fire at Khatum as we were coming to a halt on the runway as Usual I didn't realize that we were being fired upon My primary concern was to offload the 56 GIs I had on board Thank God No one was hit and the aircraft never received a scratch The number of days I have remaining in Vietnam is diminishing quite rapidly or as the GIs refer to it I'm getting short as Of this writing I have 88 days remaining I Received my orders last week which in effect state I am to report to Berkstrom Air Force Base for separation from active duty upon return stateside This letter will be my last Addressed to you as my commander in chief. I Consider it both an honor and a privilege to have served under your command and Direction I didn't want to see you vacate the presidency Since you are the best we have but at the same time I respect your decision, and I am extremely proud of you Our men in Vietnam Know that you have done Everything in your power to bring about a peaceful solution to the war Unfortunately, we cannot negotiate with ourselves Nor it is our desire to abandon the hope of a free and Democratic South Vietnam You and Mrs. Johnson are in my prayers and thoughts today and Every day love Pat PS I enjoyed talking to everyone last night Thank you and tonight It is indeed a tremendous honor for me to speak to you as we come together to honor our Vietnam veterans and Particularly those brave men and women who sacrificed their lives fighting fighting for freedom and democracy in Vietnam Each year around this time on April 30th Vietnamese American communities commemorate and honor the fallen the fallen soldiers We also remember and mourn the loss of millions of lives in Vietnam who died seeking freedom Today on behalf of the Vietnamese American community I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the sacrifices made by America during the Vietnam War 58,000 brave American soldiers and their families made the ultimate sacrifice Which allowed? Vietnamese American communities to survive and migrate to this great country 50 years ago South Vietnam stood as a fortress of freedom and democracy safeguarding against the expansion of communism in Indochina in Making the stand against communism 58,000 Americans together with 250,000 South Vietnamese lost their lives North Vietnam rallying cause was to prevent foreign occupation and ensure independent integrity and over 450,000 North Vietnamese soldiers died in the fight for that cause Today, what can we say was achieved? This is great losses Why the communist states around the world have already fallen? Vietnam still remain a communist state North Vietnam primary objective of preventing foreign occupation Has now turned Vietnam into a Chinese vessel state Vietnam today still has neither freedom nor democracy What has transpired in the 41 years since the war ended does not change the gratitude We have for the brave man and women of the Vietnam War is we honor them today. I Mention these facts because to properly honor those heroes We must examine what their sacrifice means to us today and how much the cost of For which they died still remain to be achieved One day when Vietnam is no longer under the communist control and it's once a land of freedom and democracy The Vietnam War will no longer be a reminder of division Instead it will be a reminder of a high price that freedom requires in all great countries On that day, I believe that we will have finally truly honored These fallen soldiers and the souls of those brave men and women We'll be proud that their sacrifice to cure the most important blessing for mankind freedom Why am I here today? I'm here today because a young man Saved my life and changed my life In four years of combat there were many soldiers who did this for many of us The name is Larry Morford He was 24 when he was killed 15 days before coming home. This man was in a battalion. I commanded in 69 70 In that area if you could remember it was the height of the anti Vietnam War Larry was a fervent Christian Yet he was one of the very few who volunteered and a battalion I had over 90% were draftees He was one of the very few volunteers One day I asked Larry Why if you're such a Christian are you here? I know you don't believe in combat as the way to resolve conflict And I know that you don't believe we should be in Vietnam Why are you here? His answer was simple Sir, I could not stay home when others were fighting this war Sir also the job that you and I are doing is the job of a beast and the least beastly of us Should be doing it That was Sergeant Morford's Message He lived his sermon He's the man that has inspired me to create an award every year at West Point a sergeant Morford award that sends West Point cadets to China also To teach preventive medicine in Chinese high school He along with a corporal by the name of Leif Fung Who was killed at age 24 are two soldiers that are remembered in China We're trying to make Soldiers be role models of what a good citizen should be As Cardinal Spellman mentioned a religious leader in the United States He said it this way if I had not been a priest I most certainly would have been a soldier because they're both called to do the same thing Protect the innocence and write the injustice. I Listened to Mark our host and he has given me a very strict rule and I must tell you that I left the army and went to medical school and became a missionary in Africa and in Africa The rule is very simple You can only speak as long as you have one leg up When you can no longer keep that leg up You must give up the podium or the audience can spear you so let me ended by saying that it's only fitting that my Remembrance of Sergeant Larry Morford should be followed by Sergeant Henry Kissinger Because many of you probably don't know that before dr. Kissinger became famous. He was a sergeant in the US Army May your parachutes open Mr. Larry Temple chairman of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation as chairman of the LBJ Foundation is my privilege To welcome you to this keynote presentation of the Vietnam War summit Lyndon Johnson would have been very proud of this summit and would have wanted it to take place He would particularly have been proud that the valor and commitment of the men and women Who serve this country in Vietnam is being recognized and honored here While few people seek disagreement and dispute Lyndon Johnson never shied away from controversy When this library was dedicated LBJ famously proclaimed It's all here the story of our time with the bark off There is no record of a mistake or of an unpleasantness or a criticism That is not included in the files here The exhibits and papers in this library certainly testify to the remarkable accomplishments of LBJ's legacy His monumental successes in civil rights were chronicled in the summit programs held in this library just two years ago But this library does not ignore LBJ's anguish the tragedy of the Vietnam War His greatest disappointment was the failure to achieve peace in the war in Vietnam that he inherited and pursued President Johnson always wanted this stage to be the forum for the great issues of the day That includes reflections and revisiting of events of an earlier period To learn lessons to apply to the current time So that is why I can say with certainty that President Johnson would welcome the discussions of this summit including criticisms of decisions and actions that were taken 50 years ago To borrow President Johnson's own words The aspirations of this summit is to revisit the entire story of Vietnam with the bark off There should be no record of a mistake or an unpleasantness or a criticism that is not included in this forum Now it is my pleasure to introduce LBJ foundation chairman emeritus Tom Johnson who will present the program tonight Thank You Larry It is my honor and my privilege now to introduce my friend Dr. Henry Kissinger Dr. Kissinger and I have known each other since 1967 when he was a relatively young professor at Harvard University and I was a very low ranking member of President Johnson's White House staff in July 1967 Dr. Kissinger was a top secret channel for President Johnson through French intermediaries with North Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong and the aging Ho Chi Minh Through Dr. Kissinger President Johnson offered a bombing halt if a 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 Hanoi's representatives and as a good faith measure President Johnson unilaterally halted bombing in the vicinity of Hanoi The North Vietnamese response was entirely negative and I quote We can neither receive 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 Dean Russ Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and NSC advisor Walt Rostow asked Dr. Kissinger To make one more attempt The North Vietnamese response and I quote there is no reason for us to talk again What we soon learned was that Hanoi was planning a massive all-out assault throughout Vietnam a Sledge hammer blow designed to shatter the North Vietnamese army and For them hopefully to drive the United States out On January 30 1968 Hanoi launched its Tet offensive It was much more massive than the CIA Or our military leadership had anticipated President Johnson and virtually all of us around him were shocked The North Vietnamese and the Vietcong attacked 36 of Vietnam's 42 provincial capitals and five of its six largest cities Thousands were killed But United States forces Provealed and won in every single battle including a massive battle at way Despite his best efforts and the efforts of the French intermediary The Kissinger parish channel which was codenamed Philadelphia was killed as well In my opinion No two men So wanted an honorable piece in Vietnam as did Dr. Kissinger and President Johnson LBJ died before peace treaty was negotiated However, Dr. Kissinger and President Nixon did advise the president President 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 Unfortunately, the peace agreement dr. Kissinger negotiated was violated by Hanoi and completely disregarded within months of its signing But the American people especially the anti-war activists and we know that there are many in this room tonight of that era Anti-war activists everywhere, especially on American campuses and the American Congress and the American press Had had all of the war That it could take United States troops Did not lose the war? They literally won Every engagement However, after eight long years most Americans had lost the will to fight the price had become unacceptably high in Hanoi Ho Chi Minh and General Chiap Never seemed to lose their will to continue the war until they had reunited North and south I Know there are men and women in this auditorium tonight who have disagreed and Continued to disagree with Henry Kissinger yet. I will assure you that he and LBJ Also wanted peace as much as they did an Honorable peace that would stop the war and permit the people of South Vietnam to remain free from communism From repression and from totalitarian rule How do I know I know because I was there I Know because I took the notes of their conversations. I read the transcripts of their telephone calls and their meetings Sometimes without dr. Kissinger knowing that I was on the line. I Served as a confidential link between dr. Kissinger and former president Johnson until president Johnson died They both wanted an honorable peace for his efforts dr. Kissinger won the Nobel Prize and After you see a brief presentation a video of dr. Kissinger after he negotiated that peace treaty We will bring him forward To introduce him to you. Thank you. The United States is seeking a peace that healed We have had many armistices in Indochina We want a peace that will last and therefore It is our firm intention In our relationship to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam To move from hostility to normalization And from normalization to conciliation and cooperation and we believe That under conditions of peace we can contribute throughout Indochina To a realization of the humane aspirations of all the people of Indochina And we will in that spirit perform our traditional role of Helping people realize these aspirations in peace Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the former secretary of state dr. Henry Kissinger dr. Kissinger welcome It is a privilege to have you on this stage One of the things I think most people don't realize is that you are not only the national security adviser to And secretary of state to to president Nixon and secretary of state to president Ford But also a part-time consultant to president Kennedy and President Johnson as Tom Johnson just just alluded to so More than any living person. I think you saw all the principal commanders in chief around Vietnam up close Can you talk about each of those men and what characterized their position on the war? But first of all, let me say What an honor it is for me to be here and to participate in a conference which is needed to heal wounds of the debates about Vietnam and so I want to congratulate the library for organizing this and Providing the opportunity I'd like to say also that it's sort of symbolic That secretary Kerry is coming here tomorrow night He was walking around with placards outside the White House when I served there and The point I want to make is We've become good friends in the interval and He came to my 90th birthday party and made a toast in which he said he pointed out what he What his actions had been then and that it was a pity That we didn't have an opportunity to Rather than confront each other in that period 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 and It's very meaningful to that this conference would end With his speech by this distinguished leader of America now now to answer your question In the Kennedy administration of the Vietnam was at first a relatively peripheral issue The dominant concern about Indochina in the Kennedy administration was the future of laws and Because they in turn had received the advice from President Eisenhower in The transition that the future of laws might determine the future of Vietnam then as the administration went on there was a Document that the Chinese produced by Lin Biao who was then a successor to Mao Who said that the whole world was going to be characterized by a struggle of the countryside against the cities and the Kennedy administration tended to interpret what was going on in Indochina as part of that process But in those days we had only a few thousand Advisors there But that number was increased to about fifty thousand in the Kennedy administration But it was not yet a central Obsession of American for policy then a Lyndon Johnson Inherited a situation in which the government of Vietnam had been overthrown the North Vietnamese had infiltrated regular divisions and not just guerrilla forces and so As far as 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 increase of our forces and then gradually as the administration went on a president who all his life had 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 foreign policy and I must say he was an anguished Person because he wanted peace And but his notions of peace were that you made a compromise and That is the one thing that the North Vietnamese were never prepared to do and Indeed I became involved Because in because the normal attempt to achieve Negotiations had all been blocked And I became involved in the following way. I Was at that time a professor of Harvard with no standing in the hierarchy in Washington and I went 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 Ambassador large Well, one of these two people Had been the host of Ho Chi Minh When Ho Chi Minh lived in Paris for a year to negotiate peace with the French and 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 a Secretary McNamara discussed 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 and So they were sent off with a message from President Johnson to Ho Chi Minh That outlined the circumstances under which he was prepared to to make peace and 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 it 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 and I won't go through all the details But I was sent back with another message and It none in none of this effort that I ever see a Vietnamese negotiator. I dealt with the two Frenchmen They dealt with the Vietnamese this went on for about three months and then After a while we realized that they were that they were stalling But I mentioned this only to show the dedication of President Johnson to achieve a honorable negotiated peace from the very beginning President Dixon Had the problem of how he inherited the war They were already 500 plus thousand troops in Vietnam and The question he had the same issue as President Johnson how do you and this war and How do you withdraw these troops without leading it 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 That we're taking And President Ford was president in the very last phase of the war But about him I want to say at the very end when the war when it was obvious and we were talking only about the evacuation of the last batch of civilians that were stuck at the airport in Saigon and I called them and said that we and it's now has We have to permit the Evacuation of Saigon and 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 could rescue a few more people So all the presidents were haunted in in their way each of them were dedicated to Coming with it to finding a peaceful solution Each of them had the dilemma how you relate American honor to the ending of the war and That was the dilemma. There was nobody who wanted war 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 in reliance on the word of previous presidents had committed themselves Dr. Just 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. I I've never seen the slightest evidence of this Uh, 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 commitment and not diminishing it All based on the belief That it was a simpler problem Then it turned out to be But I have never seen a piece of paper And that would indicate this and All of the chief advisors of president kennedy Who were taken over by president chunston When he became president Were unanimous In both presidencies In supporting the courts that was adopted Until things got very difficult And then of course divisions appeared, right, but I have never seen them I I know no evidence that president kennedy would have done this. Yeah Linda johnson is Was a domestic policy sage He knew how to get deals done. He knew instinctively what to do There are many who think he was out of his depth in terms of foreign policy What is your view of johnson as a foreign policy president? well president johnson was saddled With a war from the first day in office So you can't really judge what the foreign policy The tendencies of a president Who was swallowed up in a way By by the war in vietnam 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 didn't come as naturally to him as it Did in domestic policy But on the foreign policy issues other than the war in vietnam He had a with our allies And our enemies were 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 in some ways It was a personal tragedy That he spent so much of his life To achieve that office In order to be impelled to do the things That had not been his major focus But I thought he was a strong figure And I I felt Great respect and affection It has long been alleged that richard nixon's presidential campaign in 1968 tampered with the peace process By sending an emissary and annaschanal to the south vietnamese to urge them to withhold From negotiations with the north vietnamese because they might get a better deal From a president nixon What is your view of that dr. Kissinger? Well I have no personal knowledge of whether that contact Actually took place in the way It has been alleged But assuming that the story is essentially correct I do not believe That it had that whatever nixon did Had any of the consequences That That have been alleged You have to remember That this aspect of our relationship with the vietnamese The vietnamese Our vietnamese allies Were always in a nearly desperate position They needed our help It's it's as an essential component So when a peace process was going on They had a tendency to agree To provisions we put forward On the theory that the north vietnamese would always reject them So 68 we experienced What nixon then experienced four years later That when the point came Actually to undertake the negotiations And they would have to assume responsibility For the outcome That then the south vietnamese leaders felt It necessary to demonstrate to their own people That they hadn't just been forced by the united states To do this And so they had started a Debate About something That I'm sure president johnson In his day and I know president nixon In our period Thought had already been settled So one of the key issues was Actually to sit down at the table And that of course then produced the necessity for the south vietnamese To sit down at the same table with the people Who had been fighting to overthrow them From the south vietnamese communist side And so when that issue Arrows as a consequence of the negotiation president jude dug in And they started a debate About the Way The negotiation could even start We faced exactly the same thing in a different way Four years later We made Tentative agreement with the south with the north vietnamese And we thought the south vietnamese had agreed to each of the Terms when we had discussed them But then when they were actually put forward We were put forward We went through six weeks Of controversy About nuances and details So that was inherent that would have happened Where the nixon wrote his note on a second leg So you can so Some delay between the announcement And the sitting down Was in my opinion inevitable and not caused by the nixon letter But there's one other thing to remember in the public debate. It is often alleged That peace could have been made If somehow they had all sat at the same table There was absolutely no chance of this whatsoever because On november 3 two days after these announcements were made The vietnamese published their conditions Which they never changed For the rest of the chancellor administration And for the rest of the nixon administration which were The united states had to withdraw totally And form a coalition government dominated by communists Before any negotiation could take place about anything else so The chancellor administration official position At that time was Published position that the vietnamese north vietnamese had to withdraw Before any withdrawal of americans could even Take place so Those conditions were maintained for the rest of the chancellor administration And they were the principal obstacle To the failure of the negotiations in the nixon administration Until the vietnamese were defeated In the sequel to the ted offensive the tam chansen mentioned Because the one thing that the nixon administration would not concede It said we would that we would overthrow an allied government That had supported the united states In reliance on promises made by other promise presidents 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 and i mentioned this only Because america should not torture itself On the view that it could have had A settlement earlier if their presidents had been more willing They could not have had a settlement Except for just selling out and withdrawing Unconditionally which nobody would have supported There was a bob haulderman President nixon's chief of staff said in a 1978 television interview nixon had no intention of quickly pulling out of vietnam He aimed to exploit the rivalry between china and the soviet union to improve relations with both of them vietnam was an expedient where americas bonafide their intentions our motives were being acted out nixon believed that america had to negotiate from strength to prove its willingness to fight Vietnam became that place How does how do you respond to that? Is that characterized in your view nixon's position on the war? That characterizes part of nixon's position in the war This can be interpreted By professional critics of it of nixon to mean That he fought so that he could do some other things That was not what he thought He thought that if america discredited itself By abandoning its commitments in vietnam He could not do the bigger things that were needed In in order to make the war in vietnam fit into a global perspective And so in The sense that he said this is not only about vietnam But this is about trying to create a world order in which vietnam's Can no longer occur In that sense, it's correct you you Say in your book ending the vietnam war that the domino theory was real The domino effect would have played out What would have been the consequences of not waging a fight in vietnam in your opinion look The problem of any foreign policy decision Is that you have to make it on the basis of assessment? You cannot prove true when you make them That they depend on a judgment And you can always come up with a counterfactual argument a person Who had a great influence? on our thinking And I believe also to some extent on president johnson taking certainly on ours Was prime minister leak one you from singapore? One of the great men that I have met he inherited a sandbar With a per capita income of six hundred dollars and turned it in 20 years Into a significant country With a per capita income of 55,000 without any natural resources based on the dedication and quality of Of his population He was convinced And so we are many others That if vietnam collapsed At the time that president's kennedy and johnson made their decision That then the whole south asia would be Would be engulfed And that the same thing would then happen in indonesia malaysia and elsewhere And he maintained that opinion until Is his death And he was not a cold warrior in the abstract He was a judge Of what it took to keep its little country secure Uh, do you agree with that? I agree with that. Yeah, and It's so I think that the presidents who made the major decisions Uh had a reason for making them. Yeah In his 2015 book the last of the president's men bob woodward writes of a january 1972 memo that you wrote to president nixon updating him on the military situation in laos President nixon wrote a handwritten note on that same memo Which read k meaning kissinger We have had 10 years of total control in the air in laos and vietnam The result equals zilch There is something wrong with the strategy or the air force And yet the night before in a cbs interview with dan rather president nixon said of the bombing The results have been very very effective. I think their effectiveness will be demonstrated Uh publicly president nixon is saying the bombing is effective privately to you He's saying that they have done zilch. How do you account for that? No, he wasn't saying that It's very one of the curses of Modern archivism is that every scrap of paper Is collected and is then treated as if it were a legal document Here are these the presidents They work 18 hours a day. They are under Constant pressure and they write a note to their advisor in frustration that it's still going on and nixon had a way of exaggerating its comments I can tell you here what when uh, what would call me up with this? Yeah, and and he he said What did you do when you received this? I said I did nothing And he couldn't believe it Why would I do nothing? Because I had worked with president nixon for 10 years or eight years and When when you got the message like this I had a tendency after a while to wait to see Whether there'd be a follow-up and uh, and if you think about it That is would be the normal way Uh on the worst assessment of the air campaign You cannot possibly say that it achieved nothing It you can say it may not have achieved everything that That he wanted and you'd have to break it down and what the various components Were And I think probably nixon Might have slightly exaggerated what he said publicly And he surely exaggerated his frustration in a handwritten note Probably didn't late at night and and and I think One ought to analyze these documents that are floating around from that point of view I mean what was the context in which the comment was made But you had to nixon is a very uh enigmatic person And you write often that he would say one thing and mean another so you had to judge When he was saying No, no, it it didn't mean and I was I had a very clear idea of what he wanted And you have to understand you cannot survive A security advisor You have only one constituent That's the president of the united states And you must be absolutely straight with him And the most important thing a security advisor can do and must do Is to tell the president the options he has Sometimes he has to save the president from ill-considered first moves And if You abuse that Utility is Is at an end So nixon now generally known hated personal confrontations And so therefore in face-to-face confrontations It was like it was possible that he expressed himself umpicuously if you in any written exchange You could absolutely rely on what he was saying And if you look at his record he knew He was a very strong president in sticking to his basic convictions And he took enormously difficult decisions And there was no ambiguity about them But it was better to discuss them with him in writing Then as a face-to-face confrontation And one will find in going through the archives Which are now available that most of the key decisions When i was a security advisor We're based on memoranda and not on conversations The conversations played a very important role in creating the mood and establishing the general context But when a precise decision was needed It was best to do it in writing Which i think is a good way anyway in relations between presidents And their key people right Tom johnson mentioned your commitment to the peace process and the fact that you In 1973 along with your north vietnamese counterpart lee ducktoe won the the nobel peace prize Uh, there are many who allege that you are a war criminal due to the systematic carpet bombing of laos and cambodia Why was that bombing necessary to Our strategy in winning the war Well, you know by now In my 90s, so I I've heard that I think they were at war criminal Should not be thrown around in the domestic debate It's a shameful reflection on the people who use it Let us look what was the situation First there was no carpet bombing So that is absolute none is not true What the situation was is followed In the johnson administration The north vietnamese moved four divisions Into the border areas of vietnam And cambodia on cambodia soil And established base areas From which they launched attacks into Into vietnam And these divisions were put there in our position To the uh to the local to the to the cambodia government In fact, the cambodia government Told says the bolds Who was there as a representative of lbj? That if we bombed those areas and didn't kill any cambodians that they Would close their eyes to it The lbj administration decided Not to do this because they were already under pressure domestically And for other reasons the dam johnson may know Better than I do but then The When nixon came in Uh nixon had already just before he assumed office Send a message to the north vietnamese That he was eager to resume Negotiations In the third week of the nixon presidency They started an offensive In which every week 500 up to 500 americans were killed And many of these attacks more than half of these attacks came from the areas that were occupied by those four divisions inside cambodian territory And After we had suffered 1500 casualties Nearly as many as we suffered In 10 years of war in afghanistan nixon ordered An attack on the base areas Within five miles of the vietnamese border That were essentially unpopulated So when the phrase carpet bombing is used Uh it is I think in In the size of the attacks Probably much less than what the obama administration Has done in similar base areas in pakistan Uh, which I think it's justified And therefore I believe that what was done in cambodia Was Justified And when we eventually wiped out the base areas the casualties Went down by 80 percent And so Those were the decisions and I would bet That sooner or later Any president would have had to do it Because this is one that if you fight a guerrilla war And permit base areas From which the The killing units of the guerrillas Are sustained Then you are in an absolutely Hopeless position Those Uh, I would secure the advisor I strongly favored it But I was not because I was at such come in But it doesn't matter. I'm certainly Uh, was strongly supportive of it It was correct And it was in the american interest and The civilian casualties From this bombing along the five mile streak Is uh, was justified We have to ask yourself another thing The argument against doing it was That campodia was a neutral country But a country that has four divisions on in its soil It's not actually a neutral country And and the leader of campodia prince yanook Told the chancellor administration That he would In a way welcome this Barming When we then actually did it There were press inquiries And he told said at a press conference I don't know what goes on in the part of my country in which No campodians live And which is occupied by the vietnamese If any Campodian is killed Or even a bullock is killed I will protest He will he never protest Toward the end of his life Robert McNamara stood on the stage after publishing a book An expressed regret over the war and how it was waged. He said that the war was Feudal and that his conduct was wrong comma Terribly wrong Have you any regrets on any of the actions that you took in vietnam? No, we took but you always make Tactical mistakes uh I believe that the american presidents And those of us who worked with them Were acting on the basis of their best judgment at the time And uh, I think We there were mistakes were made and some that one in the course of discussing The vietnam war one should discuss How one can can learn from these But I uh I'm proud of the service. I must say Bob McNamara was a really good friend of mine And I have huge regard for him But one should not tell One should stand by one's decisions What is the biggest lesson we should draw from the war in vietnam, dr. Kissinger Biggest lesson not just from the war in vietnam I would say the Dilemma of american foreign policy in general is this We have lived behind Two great oceans Any lucky part of the country has lived in the center part of the country Where the consciousness of foreign dangers Uh inherently could not develop in the same way it had to in asia and europe Where peoples are being pressed together So therefore americans have a tendency to think That peace is the normal condition Among people among countries And when there is war or when there is Instability It is Sort of an accident at the sort of an unusual condition Which you can remedy by one set of actions After which you can go back To a condition of great stability But most Deep international problems Are caused by circumstances That have a very long time to develop so To answer your question We clearly uh we we've been involved in five wars since world war two Which we in effect lost We ended each of these wars With a wide public consensus There was an 80 support for everyone of these initial action But then After some period of time Then people say we have to end it And you need an extrication strategy Well the best extrication strategy is just to get out But you can also call that defeat So If you Enter a war You should not do it for objectives that you can sustain And if you cannot describe objectives that you can sustain You shouldn't enter it Secondly you have to distinguish You I mean as a country Between those things You Will do only if you have allies And those you must do Because your national security requires it Regardless of whether you have allies or not So You have to make that distinction And we have to learn and this is I would apply this criticism To almost all administrations Not to to not to get into these conflicts Unless you can describe an aim That you're willing to sustain And unless you are willing in the extreme To sustain it alone or to know When you have to end it Those are lessons you have to learn also from vietnam and And But we also have to learn To moderate our domestic debate Because in the course of the vietnam war What started as a reasonable debate About whether we were engaged in a process That we could master Was transformed into an attack On the moral quality of American leadership And when one teaches a people that is basically patriotic For 20 years that they are run by criminals and Fools Then you you can get a political debate That becomes more and more violent And we suffer from it in some of our current Political debates That is one lesson we should draw From from the vietnam war Which also means we should moderate The arguments But make them deeper Based on that view How would you assess the war in iraq The war in iraq well First of all i Automatically i supported it Mind the different kind of war i thought We would withdraw after sat down I was overthrown i thought more of The push one type of war We failed to make In iraq and maybe in syria made fail to make This aspect this analysis Which goes back to my original point namely We look at these countries as if they were one unit right And then we see a ruler That is oppressive And we say let's get rid of this ruler And then the people of iraq Or the people of syria Have a democratic government And can restore stability But what has happened in iraq and in syria was At the end of world war one The european victors Organized A group of tribes religions Ethnic entities One of them was syria That had a majority of sunnis And a minority of syria Which in syria are called alawites In iraq it was the opposite It had a minority of sunnis And a majority of syria So in each case The american president said Let's get rid of the Top guy And we will have stability But getting rid of the top guy Doses a conflict Among the various minority groups Who are then fighting for preeminence And so we have to learn When we get into nation building And then we In such a war we have to engage in nation building And so I think we did not understand Complexities of nation building As a general proposition in several administrations Right That's how i would assess The war in iraq we got into something deeper Than we assessed at the beginning Dr. Kistur has graciously consented to take a few questions from the audience And i will ask him another question as you Who wish to ask questions queue up behind the microphones that are on either of the aisles I ask Please that you Ensure that your question is in fact that a question and not a statement and that you'd be As brief as possible in and in asking that question Dr. Kistur let me uh It's impossible to ignore The election as it plays out You said in a 2014 Interview with scott simon of national public radio That you think hillary clinton would make a good president, but you intended to support the republican nominee i'm not going to get into the Is it is it fair to say dr. Kistur that that 2014 was a long time ago Um Are you still inclined to support whoever the republican party nominates? pronouncements fair enough I if i might add you Kind enough to say i consented to add the questions I insisted on answering questions you insisted Uh, i've wanted to give the audience I must say to dr. Kistinger's everlasting credit. He called me several weeks ago and said I want to take questions from the audience. I'll take any question That they offer to me. I ask that you uh ask a question again briefly And uh in in a civil manner and we'll start with this gentleman on the left Dr. Kistinger when The accord was signed in last in 1962 Uh They counted they counted on the vietnamese to Honor the honor the neutralization of laos which didn't happen and they they did not acknowledge that that accord was broken in your agreement you had a side aside expectation of The north vietnamese moving their troops out of cambodia laos and that didn't happen as as you as expected by the negotiators And how do we find right? Well, uh, it's a general proposition you can say At least until recently the north vietnamese must hold the olympic record for breaking agreements The 1962 agreement on laos I president is now Was convinced That laos was the key to vietnam that if one believes that vietnam was important To the security of the united states Then one had to keep laos from falling under north vietnamese domination and he is Reported and I believe did Recommend to the incoming administration That they should make an issue of laos And seem to imply that he would favor even using Some american troops to achieve this Laos being less complex country in which to achieve this objective the Kennedy administration Was not willing to put in forces But it threatened that it might and as a result it was a neutralization agreement And that was broken by the north vietnamese almost immediately and they turned laos into a Into a supply base And all the supply routes Most of the supply routes went through laos In 1972 When the nixman administration made its agreements We had a lot of practice in violated north vietnamese agreements The But we were faced With the near certainty That the congress would vote And enter the war No matter what What action Would be taken And secondly we believed That the provisions of the vietnam agreement If we could enforce them Would also protect the other two countries We thought that the South vietnamese forces that existed Could withstand all but an all-out attack And we would have enforced or we meant to enforce the agreement If there was an all-out attack Then watergate Destroyed that possibility And then the congress legislated A prohibition against any attempt to enforce the agreement And so So we will not know What might have happened But you're right it By the time that these agreements were made In 1972 The american domestic position had disintegrated To a point where Those were the best terms that were available And it goes back to the point i made earlier We must In if we enter wars Also make sure that the domestic base for it Can be sustained That's in part of the responsibility of the Administration But the opponents also have to understand That if they think If they achieve their objectives By undermining all confidence in government Then of course No strategy can succeed Yes ma'am Thank you. My name is Jeanine Nguyen with Voice of Vietnamese Americans Dr. Kissinger It is widespread That you have tactically agreed To arrange for China to take over the Paracels island In 1974 On whose behalf did you do so? And given the current South China Sea situation And older concerns in Asia and Indo-Pacific ocean What advice would you give President Xi? President Obama and our Secretary Kerry. Thank you. I'm not sure I fully understood the question It's the question that we tacitly that we agreed It said 1974 that China Could take over South China Sea I'm not quite sure I understand that. Restate the question if you would very briefly Yes, it was understood That the U.S. Under your supervisor as a secretary of the security advisor Had arranged so that China Could take over the Paracels islands in 1974 So that we don't lose that area to Russia Now today What would you suggest us do On behalf of the national security of the U.S. And given all the attacks of China is doing on the U.S. on all fronts Do you think that the agreement that you signed With Mao and Lut Mao in 1972, 71, 73 and all that time Is worth the of our 58,000 deaths of the American soldiers Thank you Well, first of all For the benefit of The two or three non-Texas graduates here who may not Who may not know what the Paracels islands are The Paracels islands Is a group of islands In the South China Sea Located between China and Vietnam there Depending on from which point of land you measure the distance They're either closer to Vietnam than to China It's anyway a disputed issue The Chinese claim these islands Because hundreds of years ago a Chinese emperor drew a line in the Pacific Near the Philippines and he said everything on that side belongs to China So and Changa Jack already claimed these islands the Vietnamese Also claim claimed these islands and the American position with respect to the islands has been consistently That we do not take a position on the sovereignty of these islands in 1974 in the midst of Watergate a war in the Middle East I can assure you The Paracels Islands were not foremost on our mind but There is no agreement that was ever signed in which we gave China a right to Occupy the Paracels Islands Nor have the Chinese ever claimed that And So I think You're not well informed the There was no specific negotiation You asked maybe thank you, ma'am. What was the last one? Yes, sir your question Mr. Christian sir, I was a South Vietnamese soldier who spent 10 years in communist prison Thanks to the very agreement that you signed with the Hanoi in 1973 47 years ago you forced You are sure my pleasure to tell that you would support you would add up You would send troops to help our nation our country to Defeat the North Vietnamese if they invade vietnam But you did nothing and the result is that vietnam fought the communist Hanoi And I expect that you should answer the question What we learned from vietnam war that we would never betray any ally that Depend on us and trust us very much. Thank you I Have great sympathy For these questions from we from vietnamese They had a right to think We had promised them support administrations Including the one in which I served When vietnam was collapsing It was impossible to convince the congress To pass any additional Funds we're talking now about 1975 There were 35 other nations That had signed on To the agreement When it was made in 1973 We appealed to all of them And none of them was willing To act it was one of the saddest moments of my life And all of us who were and The day that of the evacuation of saigon Was one of the saddest moments Of my life and of all of us Who had been Had seen The dedication Of vietnamese the dedication of those People who served there A little of which you heard in the letters That the two Johnson children read I have sympathy for your question And I hope no other american Leader of his time gets As similar questions But the fundamental failure Was the division in our country Without that we could have managed it Yes, sir Do you know how to turn it on or is it Is that working now? Okay, there you go I don't need it He just identified himself. I think the question was kind of Sergeant Warchuk 198th Infantry, iCorp, vietnam 6869 After the Ted Offensive After lbj refusing to run again after Walter Cronkite There was peace with honor as a Striving yet it cost tens of thousands of casualties Would it have been better to skip the honor and dodge so many of the casualties Getting out earlier Would it be Given the fact that peace with honor was took such a toll In terms of human life, would it have been better just to withdraw altogether? Is that a fair Yes, the the Is it so work the invasion of cambodia the the extended time of the u.s. Soldier certainly six later 269 70 sustained a lot of casualties should we have to perhaps we should have just withdrawn And dispensed with honor. Thank you If you look at the american Political debate, there was no one if you look at the position of the democratic party at that time you will find Nobody in 1969 at 70 recommended unilateral withdrawal That the position of the Johnson administration was that Vietnamese troops had to withdraw first And six months after that American withdrawals would start So unilateral withdrawal of american forces In the middle of a war Declaring we cannot stand the consequences of this war I don't know anybody who Recommended it at that time Then by two years later, we were talking about our increments Of withdrawal and very relatively Few casualties In retrospect Was the war worth all these casualties? Well, of course if you lose a war You cannot say but what it achieved in any event was that the That southeast asia Was not overrun And it probably made a contributing factor To the opening to the opening To china if it was a bitter ending I do not blame you or any administration Perhaps the fault is not in the stars, but in all of ourselves Thank you. What did you say just a statement dr. Kissinger? This is the last question on uh on the right here. Thank you. Um, hello dr. Kissinger It's a pleasure to hear you speak this evening I've always been a fan of yours find you fascinating. I may not agree with you always But you're an interesting individual and influence our world in many ways The war on drugs was issued under nixon and The long term of it. We have more people in prison in china 70 percent of our prisoners are not violent Do you think the war on drugs was worth it? And do you think it should be continued into the 21st century and you think we should Continue it or look at it as a failure or was it a victory? What do you think of that? That war on drugs and how it's affected in the last 40 some odd years The war on drugs uh the domestic policy matter Well, it affects people. Yeah, it was under nixon. I don't think any statement I can make only war of drugs fair enough Will be But I want to make one other point here My observations are directed at an american At the american audience I have great sympathy For the vietnamese Who are in this audience? and of course The perspective has to be Has to be different And i'm sorry Not because of any action The administration in which I uh I was involved in but it I It is a historic tragedy That america found itself so divided And could not solve its domestic debates So that it could come out of the war With a result that was more compatible With what on a bipartisan basis It had entered And that's a lesson We should learn Dr. Kissinger you have made your mark on history What will history say about henry kissinger? I I have uh I have no obsession about this. I had The good fortune of being Able to come to the united states when Most of the many of the people we do might grow up Were killed in uh in germany So i've always been deeply grateful to this country And I know what it represents to The peace i've been lucky in being able To execute my concerns As my profession And so i'm uh I i'm not involved in what i'm doing In order to get history Written about me and some people it will be judged so i must say the way The mass of material that is produced now in the internet age You i'm not so sure whether you can say history will come to A fair judgment anyway That is not my concern. I try to do the best I could And that's all I can say We are not only grateful to you, uh, dr. Kissinger for being our honored guest tonight, but for serving your country as uh as a In world war two we have many Veterans out there and including yourself and I would ask now that you stand and be recognized by this audience Please thank you for your service dr. Kissinger. Thank you so much for your time tonight. Thank you all