Office of the Historian

180. Diary Entry by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Moorer)1

Washington, May 31, 1972, 10:30 a.m.

Met with—LTG Zais and LTG Knowles—in office

Told them to prepare a memo to SecDef summarizing the operation in North Vietnam listing the BDA, show the bridges that have been destroyed, the rolling stock, the thermal power plants, show where the mining has occured, transformer struck, etc. Current plans are to provide for continuation of strikes against the railroad and roads. Also have plan to seal off the WBLC routes from China.

Abe2 has stated his intent is, following the stabilization of the land battle, to concentrate against the storage areas in RP 1 and 2.3 Use B–52s that are available.

We have three months of good weather ahead of us, have the air units in place, probably will be the last opportunity to force the NVN to a reasonable negotiation. We must take advantage of the situation to inflict the maximum damage aimed to force NVN to negotiation posture. Move forward with a very aggressive bombing campaign, which will not only interdict NVN efforts to bring in supplies, but also destroy power supplies in Hanoi and Haiphong areas.

  1. Source: National Archives, RG 218, Records of the Chairman, Moorer Diary, July 1970–July 1974.↩
  2. General Abrams.↩
  3. Route Packages 1 and 2 were the target zones in North Vietnam closest to the DMZ.↩