Office of the Historian

215. Message From Richard T. Kennedy of the National Security Council Staff to the Air Attaché at the Embassy in France (Guay)1

Washington, December 22, 1972, 0144Z.

Per our conversation you should deliver the following message to the customer at your meeting on Friday, December 22, 1972.

Begin text: The U.S. side wants to take the occasion of Vice Minister Thach’s remarks at the December 20 experts meeting2 to state the following:

The DRV side’s references to the past record concerning U.S. military actions contain distortions based on quotations taken out of context, a practice that the DRV side has resorted to with increasing frequency at recent meetings. As the DRV side well knows, the U.S. side unilaterally accepted some restrictions on its military actions so long as an agreement seemed imminent and the DRV side was negotiating in good faith. The U.S. side has repeatedly emphasized that these restrictions would be impossible to maintain if the negotiations no longer [Page 803] reflected a serious attitude by the DRV side. As its message of December 18, 1972 made clear, the U.S. side came to the conclusion that the DRV side was deliberately and frivolously delaying the talks during the session of December 4–13.

Both governments now confront a very grave decision. The choice is whether to slide into a continuation of the conflict or to make a serious final effort to reach a settlement at a time when agreement is so near. The U.S. side, preferring the latter course, proposes a meeting between Special Adviser Le Duc Tho and Dr. Kissinger January 3, 1973 in Paris on the basis of the U.S. message of December 18, 1972. Dr. Kissinger could set aside three days for the purpose of concluding the settlement.

If the DRV agrees to this meeting, the U.S., as a sign of its good will, will again suspend its bombing north of the 20th parallel starting as of midnight December 31 and lasting for the duration of the negotiating sessions. If an agreement is reached, this restriction will continue. The U.S. side reaffirms that it will stop all bombing and shelling against the territory of Democratic Republic of Vietnam within 48 hours of an agreement in Paris.

In the meantime the technical experts should at last start serious negotiations on the protocols associated with the agreement with a view to reaching agreement on these documents in time for a settlement during the meeting between Dr. Kissinger and Special Adviser Le Duc Tho.3

End text.

  1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 865, For the President’s Files (Winston Lord)—China Trip/Vietnam, Camp David Memcons, December 1972 [1 of 3]. Top Secret; Sensitive; Exclusively Eyes Only. Written on December 21.↩
  2. Thach protested the B–52 bombings, demanded that they be stopped, and insisted that the United States engage in serious negotiations. After presenting the message, Thach refused to continue the meeting on the protocols but committed to another one on December 23. A copy of the North Vietnamese message is in a message from Isham to Kissinger, December 20, 1807Z. (Ibid.)↩
  3. In response to this message, the North Vietnamese sent an undated, circa December 22, note to the White House via Guay which protested the bombing and stated that after the bombing had stopped—i.e., after the situation returned to what it was before December 18—technical meetings on the protocols could resume and the private meetings between Le Duc Tho and Kissinger, which the North Vietnamese also proposed beginning on January 8, 1973, could take place. (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box TS 43, Geopolitical File, Vietnam, Bombing, 1972–73)↩