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

1052 Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Volume XIV
The question arises why shouldn’t the Vietnamese and not someone
else determine who leads the government of South Vietnam? Why
is it that recipes for a solution of the question in Vietnam do not come
from the Vietnamese themselves but instead come from Washington?
Now that is certainly rather strange logic. After all, no one invited the
U.S. into Vietnam; you went into Vietnam with an enormous army and
then the Americans started saying they were defending themselves.
Actually the fact is they went into a country not belonging to them and
then said it was self-defense. That is very strange. On what laws was
this based? There are no such laws. And this can be qualified as nothing
short of pure aggression.
Now you say you want to end this war and quite calmly put forward
the idea. But this is at a time when you are carrying out cruel
bombing raids not only in the direct theater of battle but also against
the peaceful civilian population. All this you say is your method of
ending the war. Surely there is nothing in common between these actions
and ending the war. They can only amount to a deliberate effort
to destroy a country and kill off thousands, millions of innocent people.
For what sake is this, by what right is this being done? It would
certainly be interesting to hear for the sake of what the U.S. invaded
Vietnam. Why is it waging the longest war in the history of the United
States? It is a war against a very small country far from the U.S. which
does not threaten the U.S. in any way whatsoever. What country could
justify such actions? I am sure no nation could find any just explanation
for what is being done. And that is probably why all countries call
the U.S. the aggressor and probably rightly so. I don’t want to hurl
more epithets on you. There have been quite enough epithets heaped
on you as it is. But how can the methods you use now be called a
method of ending the war in Vietnam? Today is not the time for such
acts.
All of this is not to mention the fact that your actions affect some
of our interests directly.
Chairman Kosygin: Just today I contacted the Minister of Merchant
Marine, and I received a report around 2:00 p.m. that one American
bomb fell 120 meters away from one Soviet vessel, in another case 350
meters away and another no more than 500 meters away from Soviet
ships. In fact, your planes are blatantly buzzing and bombing near Soviet
ships, and all of this at a time when you are here in Moscow conducting
negotiations with us.
General Secretary Brezhnev: If underlying your explanation in
which you try to show us your desire to end the war was a genuine
intent on the part of the U.S., we are sure that a power of the stature
of the U.S. with a big and able diplomatic apparatus could find a way
to come to terms with the Vietnamese to end the war. But if we now