Word: laird
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...President hardened his choice in a final weekend at Camp David. "If we turn tail now, America's commitments will be worthless," he told an aide. "The prestige of the presidency would hit rock bottom." On Saturday he ordered Laird to prepare for mining. He began working on a television speech that would explain the move. Writing it almost alone, he paused for telephone calls to his campaign manager, John Mitchell, and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller...
...final chance to change the President's mind came in a meeting Monday morning of the National Security Council. Among those present were Kissinger, Rogers, Laird, Connally, CIA Director Richard Helms and Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The discussion was lively. "Some played the devil's advocate," conceded one participant. Nixon said he still intended to mine. "Nobody could dissuade him from it or offer a better alternative," said one observer...
Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird ordered a top-level team of logistics specialists to Vietnam Wednesday to determine whether Saigon requires more American military...
Pentagon spokesman Jerry W. Friedheim said the group, hended by one of Laird's top civilian assistants and accompanied by five generals, will consider both Saigon's military needs and what additional measures may be needed to protect the remaining U.S. troops...
...possible U.S. course except use of nuclear weapons and commitment of U.S. ground troops to the fighting. "We're not going to make any announcement about what we're not going to do," he said. "We think there has been altogether too much of that in this war." Predictably, Laird was more truculent, leaving open the chance that the U.S. could mine Haiphong harbor or even blockade all of North Viet Nam's ports...