Kissinger told China communist takeover in Vietnam was acceptable: documents

Canada.com ^ | May 26, 2006 | Calvin Woodward

[neverdem]

Canadian Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger quietly acknowledged to China in 1972 that Washington could accept a communist takeover of South Vietnam if that evolved after a withdrawal of U.S. troops - even as the war to drive back the Communists dragged on with mounting deaths.

The late U.S. president Richard Nixon's envoy told Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai: "If we can live with a communist government in China, we ought to be able to accept it in Indochina."

Kissinger's blunt remarks surfaced in a collection of papers from his years of diplomacy released Friday by George Washington University's National Security Archive. The collection was gathered from documents available at the U.S. government's National Archives and obtained through the research group's declassification requests.

Kissinger's comments appear to lend credence to the "decent interval" theory posed by some historians who said the United States was prepared to see Communists take over Saigon, as long as that happened long enough after a U.S. troop departure to save face.

But Kissinger cautioned in an interview Friday against reaching easy conclusions from his words of more than three decades ago.

"One of my objectives had to be to get Chinese acquiescence in our policy," he said.

"We succeeded in it and then when we had achieved our goal, our domestic situation made it impossible to sustain it," he said, explaining he meant Watergate and its consequences.

The papers consist of some 2,100 memoranda of Kissinger's secret conversations with senior officials abroad and at home from 1969 to 1977 while he served under presidents Nixon and Gerald Ford as national security adviser, secretary or state and both. The collection contains more than 28,000 pages.

The meeting with Zhou took place in Beijing on June 22, 1972, during stepped-up U.S. bombing and the mining of harbours meant to stall a North Vietnam offensive that began in the spring. China, Vietnam's ally, objected to the U.S. course but was engaged in an historic thaw of relations with Washington.

Kissinger told Zhou the United States respected its Hanoi enemy as a "permanent factor" and probably the "strongest entity" in the region.

"And we have had no interest in destroying it or even defeating it," he insisted.

He complained Hanoi had made one demand in negotiations he could never accept - that the United States force out the Saigon government.

"This isn't because of any particular personal liking for any of the individuals concerned," he said.

"It is because a country cannot be asked to engage in major acts of betrayal as a basis of its foreign policy."

However, Kissinger sketched out scenarios under which Communists might come to power.

While the United States could not make that happen, he said: "If, as a result of historical evolution it should happen over a period of time, if we can live with a communist government in China, we ought to be able to accept it in Indochina."

Pressed by Zhou, Kissinger further acknowledged a communist takeover by force might be tolerated if it happened long enough after a U.S. withdrawal.

He said if civil war broke out a month after a peace deal led to U.S. withdrawal and an exchange of prisoners, Washington would probably consider that a trick and have to step back in.

"If the North Vietnamese, on the other hand, engage in serious negotiation with the South Vietnamese and if after a longer period it starts again after we were all disengaged, my personal judgment is that it is much less likely that we will go back again, much less likely."

The envoy foresaw saw the possibility of friendly relations with adversaries after a war that, by June 1972, had killed more than 45,000 Americans.

"What has Hanoi done to us that would make it impossible to, say in 10 years, establish a new relationship?"

Almost 2,000 more Americans would be killed in action before the last U.S. combat death in January 1973, the month the Paris Peace Accords officially halted U.S. action, left North Vietnamese in the South and preserved the Saigon government until it fell in April 1975.

Whether by design or circumstance, the United States achieved an interval between its pullout and the loss of South Vietnam but not enough of one to avoid history's judgment that it had suffered defeat.

Kissinger said in the interview he was consistent in trying to separate the military and political outcomes in Vietnam - indeed, a point he made at the time.

"If they agreed to a democratic outcome, we would let it evolve according to its own processes," he said Friday, adding to tolerate a communist rise to power was not to wish for it.

William Burr, senior analyst at the National Security Archive, said the papers are the most extensive published record of Kissinger's work, in many cases offering insight into matters that the diplomat only touched on in his prolific memoirs.

For example, he said Kissinger devoted scant space in one book to his expansive meetings with Zhou on that visit to Beijing, during which the Chinese official said he wished Kissinger could run for president himself.

At the time, Chinese-Soviet tensions were sharp and the United States was playing one communist state against the other, while seeking detente with its main rival, Moscow. Kissinger hinted to Zhou the United States would consider a nuclear response if the Soviets were to overrun Asia with conventional forces.

But when the Japanese separately recognized communist China with what Kissinger called "indecent haste," he branded them "treacherous."

© The Canadian Press

[rlmorel]

If true, I am speechless.

One of the most disgraceful stabs in the back our country has ever arranged, and to even consider the possibility it may have been done in this way make me feel nauseous.

[Enterprise]

If true, Kissinger should have been saying this publicly BEFORE all those kids died, not AFTER! But then, maybe Kissinger has the same ethical standars as Mike Nifong. (And puleeeeeze don't harass me with obvious statements like Kissinger wasn't in power when the war started!)

[kittymyrib]

Kissinger also believed that the US would never be able to overcome the USSR. The only reason people considered him an expert was because of his accent and the fact that he ran in the right liberal circles in NYC.

[The Westerner]

Well, usually you make sense. I'll grant you that.

This article is perfectly accurate in depicting Kissinger as a Metternich of the 20th Century. His policy toward China and Vietnam was evil then and is evil now. You can take the few sentences reported here or his whole record. He should be hung for treason, but we are no longer in that kind of America.

[oyez]

Some say VN was a mistake, but I hold that the USA's involvement caused the first crack in the mortar of the Soviet Union. The murdering communists had to fork out a paint load of resources to achieve their objective.

[NormsRevenge]

Thanks for posting. just saw this on yahoo with a couple other titles as well

>>Kissinger's notes on communism released<<

on the home page and

>>Kissinger papers: U.S. OK with takeover<<

on the article page.

Here's a pic or two.

Dr. Henry Kissinger, left, U.S. Presidential National Security Adviser, shakes hands with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai of the People's Republic of China at their meeting at Government Guest House in Peking, China, July 9, 1971. As the Vietnam War dragged on Kissinger told Zhou in 1972 that 'if we can live with a communist government in China, we ought to be able to accept it in Indochina.' (AP Photo/File)

[Paladin2]

Kissinger has been shown to have no ethical standards.

Keelhaul him now!

[Finalapproach29er]

This is why only Americans by birth should President. IMO

What a disgusting, soulless bastard.

[Enterprise]

Too many of us didn't fully understand at the time the kind of people who were in power. Bastards, all of them. They remind me of the diseased king in Braveheart who counseled his son to get the best deal for himself and screw everybody else.

[Paladin2]

There's a lot of serious house cleaning needed now.

[Williams]

Thanks for the compliment. You're right, we're not that kind of country anymore, sadly. But I would not start hangings with Henry Kissinger.

Kissinger (and Nixon too, after all) just used the Chinese as a counter balance against the USSR, at a time when the US was looking threatened and we were tied down in Vietnam. It seems to me that over time China HAS evolved from the crazy Mao years to at least a more capitalist economy, but admittedly still a dangerous dictatorship. Only time will tell, but I think Kissinger played the cards we were dealt at the time.

[fso301]

bump

[Torie]

Well given that the US was not going back in, wasn't that the inevitable end result? Kissinger was stating the obvious.

[neverdem]

Was Kissinger speaking on his own?
Or was he simply being Nixon's button man?

It's hard to say, but he never should have said it. It also needs to be said that Nixon and Kissinger outwardly embraced detente with the Russkies at the same time they were planning triangulation with the Chicoms.

[Moonman62]

During his run for the presidency in 1976, Ronald Reagan alluded to Kissinger's remark to Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, made around 1971, that "the day of the Soviet Union has arrived," and that Washington should be satisfied with being "second place" behind Moscow. It seems like the Mid-Century Metternich was rather bearish on America at this time.

Another vindication for Ronnie the Great. I never could stand Kissinger.

[MaineVoter2002]

Amazing! Today the VietCong and US Military are having joint exercises to avoid such a takeover by China

[Abcdefg]

Commie traitor PING!

[Buffalo Head]

"Today the Vietcong and US Military are having joint exercises to avoid such a takeover by China."

Please provide your source for that statement.

[WLR]

Your observation is keen.

Instead of just the cost of resources provided it was expertise gained by US Forces which proved to be the Soviets undoing. Vietnam for the US Military was basically a testbed and live fire training area with adaptive moving and thinking targets.

The law of unintended consequences never bit anyone more fiercely than it bit the Soviets over Vietnam. The US Military still had a functional and far seeing senior leadership as a leftover from WWII. American Officers were forced to refine the Military Force Struture (all voluntary). The smaller numbers required a higher degree of proffesionalism and expertise to be effective. Weapon and delivery systems were refined to a greater degree than any other military enjoyed. Finally the Soviets had to face the very real prospect of fighting a highly organized and exceedingly well trained active US Military that had a pool of blooded warriors it could call up of nearly 3 million strong against the Soviet Military which had not fought a major engagement in 20 plus years.

The US media at the time was constantly braying about the US needing to use the Nuclear option in order to prevent being overwhelmed by Soviet forces and their allies. As likely as not the Soviets and their Allies would have been forced to use Nuclear Weapons to prevent their own conventional forces from being annihilated by US conventional forces. Keep in mind actual ideal locations for massive ground force invasion of Europe (Like the Fulda Gap) were/are not unlimited and those would have quickly been choked off just by the sheer volume of distroyed equipment on the ground with the best routes being blocked first.

One concern expressed privately as scenarios were played out and replayed was the possibilty the Soviets would order their less trusted "Allies" like the Poles to "Surrender" early on one to remove them from board and concern and two hoping the sheer numbers posed for surrender and evacuation would create havoc itself as the US and it's allies tried to cope with a 100,000 or more POWs in the middle of what was to be the most massive land battle in history.

Vietnam and Vietnamese deaths and politics were really minor pawns in a game for keeps between the big boys.

US GI's that served, died and suffered in Vietnam were vindicated the day the Berlin wall fell and the Soviet Union
cracked leaving the United States as the sole world military
and economic superpower.

An odd definition of loss by any measure.

Wm


Welcome Home

[pepsionice]

It is largely considered fact that Kissenger stalled the peacetalks in 1968 (as chief of negoations) because he knew that Nixon would offer him the job of secretary of state, if he did so. Even the North Vietnam government was surprised when they were ready to sign off on a number of conditions, and Kissenger just went into additional conditions. And the end of the war? It only came when Nixon was ready for it to end...and jump-started the peacetalks by using B-52s and quickly bringing all the players to the table in a very short period of time.

As much as I hate Albright...I think she was more accountable and true to the nation than Kissenger ever was.