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

May 13–May 31, 1972 1055
Now 29 years since the end of that war there is another war. One is
simply hard pressed to fathom this.
It’s surely doubtful that all of the American people are unanimously
supporting the war in Vietnam. Certainly I doubt the families
of those who were killed or those who were maimed and remain crippled
support the war. In the name of what is that being done? Could
the prestige of the U.S. fall if the U.S. imposed a peaceful settlement
on Vietnam? Certainly not. The prestige of the U.S. would rise if you
took this course. And I believe that line would be earnestly welcomed
and saluted by the whole world.
I am sure if the U.S. Government, the U.S. President, applied what
I call a true spirit of genius and if you could impose peace on the area,
I repeat emphatically that U.S. prestige would soar. Look at the situation
of DeGaulle when he ended the war in Algeria. When he came to
power the war had been going on for seven years without giving France
any laurels. When he extricated France from the war he immediately
became a national hero.
We are speaking quite frankly because we are politicians and must
be frank. We don’t put forward any conditions. We only ask that the war
be ended. We have no proposals of our own regarding a government in
Vietnam. We feel that’s for the Vietnamese to decide. They have proposed
a coalition government. We believe it is entirely their own business, not
ours. So we make no demands on you on this matter. We don’t say there
has to be a communist government in Vietnam. Whether their government
is communist or non-communist, that is their business.
Dr. Kissinger told me that if there was a peaceful settlement in
Vietnam you would be agreeable to the Vietnamese doing whatever
they want, having whatever they want after a period of time, say 18
months. If that is indeed true, and if the Vietnamese knew this, and it
was true, they would be sympathetic on that basis. Even from the point
of view of the election in the United States I submit that the end of the
war at this particular time would play a positive role whereas escalation
will not. As for sending in new waves of bombers against Vietnam,
they cannot solve the problem and never can.
Another factor to take account of is that outside of Vietnam there
are other states, some small, some big, which will not accept the defeat
of Vietnam. That too is something that should be foreseen. We are
after all mere human beings and cannot vouch at all times for the situation.
We cannot foresee in detail everything that will happen tomorrow.
Our heads are not electronic computers, which will always be
absolutely precise in calculations to the smallest degree. Who can guarantee
that we can foresee all the twists and turns of policy a thousand
years ahead? Certain things are perhaps eternal. Who will decide
personally who will kill whom? After all, Hitler started the war for