209. Transcript of a Telephone Conversation Between the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (Sullivan)1
S: I just got back from Saigon. I wanted you to know that Ellsworth wants to come the middle of the month to go to Yale and get an honorary degree at commencement. I presume we would not deny his coming to get a degree.
K: Sure, I want to see him.
S: I did not want you to think that we were conspiring against you to get him back here and—
K: You are conspiring all right, but not with Bunker.
S: Who with?
K: You should know. No, I am only joking. Is that what the special mission is for.
S: That is what it is all about. The plane and everything. They asked for that before I could get back to put the request through.
K: I have no problem with him coming home. In fact, I want to see him.
S: They got the call on the flight before we were able to get back and confirm it. We had an interesting view out there. I guess Jack Irwin will probably be filling you in on the entire trip.
K: What is your view. You know that area better than he does.
S: I am worried about Cambodia. We were able to go to some of the—as low as the plane would take us—front line positions and if they are hit by anything real we will have some real problems. The rains will probably save them for this season. Thieu seemed surprisingly confident. He had his tail up and high and seems fine. I think the loss of General Tri was a real blow for us and is beginning to be evidenced now.
K: I think that hurt Lamson 719 very much.
S: No doubt. President Thieu indicated some things he was not going to do until his election and then some things he was going to do after his election.
K: Oh really?
S: We flew over the Chup plantation area and that is a hell of a big sanctuary they have in there. I think that death is being felt very much.
[Page 671]K: That is what killed us. The Tri death was a big blow.
S: It is starting to show now. I believe they are going to have problems inside Military Region III but Thieu does not seem too worried about this and is concentrating up in Military Region II—Binh Fo (phonetic) and that area. He thinks he will be able to turn over to the region people the authority and that his ARVN will be able to take over and cut 12 to 8 ARVN divisions.
K: Bill, we do not want the Koreans out of there yet.
S: I had a long talk on this with Abe.
K: He is as right about that as he was about Lamson 719.
S: I talked with Bill Porter. If he gets a set of instructions for negotiating he thinks he can . . . with the budget and keep two divisions.
K: I talked to the President last night and he feels very strongly about this.
S: I talked to Abe.
K: The military is wrong on this. They are worried about their symmetry of deployment and logistics.
S: Porter doing more and will try and keep those troops in there.
K: Then in 1973 we can pull them out.
- Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Box 10, Chronological File. No classification marking.↩