Office of the Historian

41. Backchannel Message From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Haig)1

Saigon, October 22, 1972, 1105Z.

Hakto 37/215. Deliver immediately.

Thieu has just rejected the entire plan or any modification of it and refuses to discuss any further negotiations on the basis of it. He insists that any settlement must contain absolute guarantees of the DMZ, total withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces, and total self-determination of South Vietnam without any reference as to how this is to be exercised.2

I need not tell you the crisis with which this confronts us. Before you talk to the President, please Flash back your own quick assessment. I will in the meantime collect my own thoughts.

Warm regards.

  1. Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box TS 59, Geopolitical File, Vietnam, Trips, Kissinger, Henry, 1972, October, Chronological File. Top Secret; Flash; Sensitive; Exclusively Eyes Only.↩
  2. See Document 49.↩