(19 of 23)
In my opening remarks I uttered the phrase that was to haunt me: "A war that has been raging for ten years is drawing to a conclusion ... We believe that peace is at hand."
Nixon was not aware that I would use the words "peace is at hand." It was a pithy message—too optimistic, as it turned out —a signal to Hanoi that we were not reneging and to Saigon that we would not be derailed. And despite all the opprobrium heaped on it later, the statement was essentially true—though if I had to do it over I would choose a less dramatic phrase. The fact is that a bitter war that had lasted ten years and cost untold lives was settled within weeks of that statement.
Meanwhile, our public debate on Viet Nam heated up once again. Two main lines of attack developed: that the whole thing was a fraud to help Nixon win the election, which all polls showed was nonsense; that the same terms had been attainable four years earlier, which was totally untrue. Some antiwar critics had long since given up on ceasefire; on North Vietnamese withdrawal from Laos and Cambodia; on a ban on infiltration into South Viet Nam; on continued aid to Saigon. Now that much more had been achieved, they could not bring themselves to admit that possibly their Government had not been so immoral and stupid as their folklore had it.
The Christmas Bombing
When Kissinger returned to Paris to resume negotiations with Le Duc Tho in November 1972, the U.S. was in a bind. Despite Thieu 's stubbornness, Washington was reluctant to impose terms on him that would have had the effect, as Kissinger puts it, "of undermining the morale and survival of our ally." On the other hand, Hanoi now seemed less eager for an agreement, and appeared to be gambling that if it stonewalled long enough, a new, more liberal U.S. Congress would soon arrive in Washington and, in Kissinger's words, "force us out of the war" by cutting off funds. In a memo to Nixon, Kissinger warned: "They are playing for a clear-cut victory through our split with Saigon or our domestic collapse rather than run the risk of a negotiated settlement. We are faced with the same kind of hard decisions as last spring." Meetings in November and December led nowhere, and on Dec. 13, convinced that "we were simply treading water," a discouraged Kissinger headed home. Hanoi, he was sure, had been determined ever since the negotiations had resumed "not to allow the agreement to be completed. This was the insoluble problem over which we began the Christmas bombing five days later."
During the December negotiations, I had tried to impress on Nixon that a breakup (or a recess) would mean that we would have to step up military pressures on Hanoi if we did not want either an endless war or an unenforceable peace likely to wreck Saigon. I am positive that had Hanoi in December given us one or two minimal, essentially window-dressing, propositions, Nixon would have accepted them with alacrity. He was not anxious to resume bombing.
Nixon, Haig and I met in the Oval Office on the morning of Dec. 14 to consider our course. All of us agreed that some military response was