 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 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? And you know by now I in my 90s, so I I've heard that I think the word war criminal should not be thrown around in the domestic debate. It's a shameful, it's a reflection on the people who use it. Let us look what was the situation. First there was no carpet bombing. So that is absolutely 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 Cambodian soil and established base areas from which they launched attacks into Vietnam and these divisions were put there in opposition to the local, to the Cambodian government. In fact the Cambodian government told such 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 that Donald Johnson may know better than I do. But then the when Nixon came in Nixon had already just before he assumed office sent 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 it is I think in the size of the attacks probably much less than what the Obama administration has done in similar base areas in Pakistan 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% 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 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 am certainly was strongly supportive of it. It was correct and it was in the American interests and the civilian casualties from this bombing along the five mile street was justified. We have to have another thing the argument against doing it was that Cambodia was a neutral country a country that has four divisions in its soil it's not actually a neutral country and and the leader of Cambodia, Prince Cyrnouk told the Johnson administration that he would in a way welcome this bombing when we then actually did it there were press inquiries and he 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 Pollock is killed I will protest. He will he never protest