271. Memorandum of Conversation1 Moscow, May 24, 1972, 7:50 ...

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1048 Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Volume XIV important to get it cleared up so that we can proceed with the signing on Friday. 4 General Secretary Brezhnev: That is how it looks. The President: I think we have made a good start on European matters and we should be able to discuss it further at one of our meetings, probably Friday. Then tomorrow we should have further discussions on trade. If we could get that wrapped up we could have some announcement on Saturday. We could at least announce the Commission tomorrow and whatever else we can agree to on Saturday. General Secretary Brezhnev: Of course it is quite true we must bring to a conclusion all that we have been discussing. Of course, in the international field there is the Middle East and Vietnam. These are acute questions but nevertheless it is necessary to discuss them. The President: I think it is important to discuss both these subjects in this small forum because these are issues where we have some basic disagreements. It is important to discuss where we disagree and where we can find agreement. 5 Several times during the course of our meetings, General Secretary Brezhnev has mentioned that Vietnam is a difficult issue and that because of developments that have occurred there the possibility of constructive progress at this meeting might have been jeopardized. I know it was very difficult for the Soviet leaders to look at the situation in Vietnam and make a decision nevertheless to continue our discussion as we have continued it at the highest level on other matters. On the other hand, I believe one of the rules that both our countries must bear in mind in the future is that we must at all costs avoid what may be very important but what is essentially a collateral issue preventing progress on other issues that are overriding in our relations. We certainly did not choose this particular time to have the Vietnam situation flare up. The choice was by the North Vietnamese. Under the 4 May 26. 5 Kissinger recalled that “Nixon decided to put Vietnam squarely on the table. If he had not, the Soviet leaders surely would have; they were loaded for bear.” He wrote that once the subject was Vietnam, “the easy camaraderie vanished; the atmosphere clouded suddenly from one second to the other. Each of the three Soviet leaders in turn unleashed a diatribe against Nixon, who, except for two one-sentence interruptions, endured it in dignified silence.” Kissinger commented that he suddenly thought that “for all the bombast and rudeness, we were participants in a charade. While the tone was bellicose and the manner extremely rough, none of the Soviet statements had any operational content. The leaders stayed well clear of threats. . . . The Soviet leaders were not pressing us except with words. They were speaking for the record, and when they had said enough to have a transcript to send to Hanoi, they would stop. . . . The fact is that except for their bullying tone in this session the Soviet leaders treated Vietnam as a subsidiary issue during the summit.” (White House Years, pp. 1225–1228)
May 13–May 31, 1972 1049 circumstances I was left with no choice but to react as we did react. I realized this posed a very difficult problem for the Soviet leadership. We were faced with a situation where 60,000 U.S. troops would have been endangered had not strong action been taken. We were also faced with the continuing problem where as many as 1,000 or more are missing in action and not accounted for, most or many of whom are known to be prisoners of war. And despite the withdrawal of 500,000 United States soldiers since I took office and after offer after offer in the negotiations, 149 public meetings in Paris and 13 private meetings which Dr. Kissinger conducted produced absolutely nothing from the North Vietnamese except for an ultimatum for us to get out under conditions which we will not accept. Our position now is very forthcoming. We believe it is fair. As a matter of fact, the General Secretary in his conversations with Dr. Kissinger in his visit a few weeks ago suggested the consideration of a ceasefire. All we ask now is a return of and an accounting for our prisoners of war and a ceasefire. Once that is agreed to, we will withdraw all Americans within four months and cease military actions. We cannot go any further than that. Nothing further is negotiable on that point. We could talk at great length about the wisdom of the American position in Vietnam. I know the views of the Soviet leaders. You know ours. No useful purpose would be served by going over past history. We now confront the fact that we have taken every step to bring an end to what is the only major international issue which clouds relations between the United States and the USSR. It is our intention to end the war by negotiations; but negotiations must be fair to both sides. There cannot be an ultimatum to us to impose on the South Vietnamese a government the North Vietnamese cannot impose by themselves. If the North Vietnamese are unwilling to end the war that way [by negotiations], 6 then I will do whatever I must to bring the war to an end. Anything we do we will have in mind our desire not to exacerbate the relations between us. To this end we rejected the idea of a blockade which would have involved Soviet ships. During this meeting, for example, we stopped bombing the Hanoi area because of our desire to avoid any incidents embarrassing these talks. We have now reached the point where we see no way to deal with the North Vietnamese except the course I have chosen. Now the choice is theirs. They can have a peace which respects their independence and ends the conflict throughout Southeast Asia. Or we will have to use the military means available to us to bring the war to an end. 6 All brackets in the source text.
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271. Memorandum of Conversation1 Moscow, May 24, 1972, 7:50 ...

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