213. Transcript of a Telephone Conversation Between Richard T. Kennedy of the National Security Council Staff and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Moorer)1

1333—Telecon Secure/Incoming—Col Kennedy

COL—Anything on the B52 strikes today, sir?

[Page 798]

CJCS—They haven’t gone yet and are going in two waves—one in rapid succession. I think a little after 1500 so they haven’t taken place but I’ll let you know.

COL—One other question the President asked when he saw the total list was, “How come only 60 total [B–52s] for the whole area?”

CJCS—Because 60 we dropped to 30 in the Northern area and then we told Weyand that he could take the others and send them either in the lower area or even fill urgent requirements that Codley has been laying on us as well as MACVs requirements in MR–12 and it wasn’t intended that we keep the maximum number/effort of a 100 or so in the northern Vietnam proper and I didn’t understand that that was what the President wanted if it was.

COL—That is not the point, the total number of B52 sorties so far as we can tell is 60.

CJCS—They’ll pick that up that’s a certain reporting period when they break their cadence and go into a different … just like before, they started this they only had 60 or 70 and when they picked up another sequence it is temporarily dropped for a few hours and pick back up to 100 tomorrow. They can’t when they go in a large wave they have to stand down some to get ready and stand down some to get back into a “bus schedule.”

COL—Other kind of formation.

CJCS—Any time you break their routine you will lose sorties even though it is not intended to be that way.

COL—Reassure them back up tomorrow that will do it, good all right, sir.

CJCSHAK called me and I didn’t get to tell him all the details of this but last night was pretty good night.3 Finally got into the Hanoi Power Plant and Hanoi RR and the Power Plant had 6 bombs reporting right in the Power Plant and 2 just a little short and the RR Station all 8 in and then they eliminated Hanoi Radio and then they knocked out (Navy) 5 SAM sites and Air Force 4. We are trying to suppress those SAM sites so the Air Force can get in there easier and then I have gotten BDA I told HAK about and I was going to get a little book ready for him when he gets back Saturday which shows some of the targets north of the River have been pretty well beaten up. We are going to hopefully have a good night and another maybe tomorrow night. I have told [Page 799] them in essence to drop everything and put as much effort as possible up there. We don’t have these days very often. I thought last night we did pretty well and only lost (Washington time) daytime out there—lost one airplane. I know that sometime HAK makes remarks about the airfields but I think it is significant that during these 3 days we had the large number of B52s up there they actually only launched 10 total with 7 on the first day; zero on the second and 3 on the last one. If those fighters would get right behind a cell and lock on it would be disastrous.

COL—Probably lose more than 3 airplanes.

CJCS—It paid off well, as a matter of fact, we don’t have a single tacair shot down either as a matter of fact, the big problem has been those SAMs. Any way, we are doing everything we can to divert and use as much as possible to suppress this in order for this strike that is to go in a couple of hours to go off.

COL—This’ll keep him pooped up and I’ll call him.

CJCS—I hope we are going to have another good night tonight. I am just going around right now to review the situation so that we can pretty well polish off any remaining power facilities because they have all been hit now and we just want to know rather than 35% we want to knock them 100% like with that downtown Hanoi thing, that is going to force them to go pretty much to something like either motor generators or I don’t know what-all.

COL—It’ll foul up the radio problem too further.

CJCS—I talked to HAK, I don’t know whether he was actually in with the President or not but he seems satisfied I told him we had a pretty good night. I will let you know as soon as we get a feed-back on the B52s. They are going to be using a little different tactic in that tonight they are putting it in towards the end of the darkness period on account of the moon I think they should do the best they can.

COL—Thank you very much.

  1. Source: National Archives, RG 218, Records of the Chairman, Moorer Diary, July 1970–July 1974. Top Secret.
  2. The “Northern area” refers to the Hanoi-Haiphong area; “lower area” to southern North Vietnam; Godley’s requirements to possible missions in Laos; and MACV’s to missions in northern South Vietnam.
  3. See Document 212. When Moorer says “last night” he is talking about Washington time, but only as a reference point to indicate the time in North Vietnam, which was daytime, December 20. B–52s did not take part in strikes during the day.