Word: laird
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There were repeated meetings with Kissinger, Secretaries William Rogers of State and Melvin Laird of Defense, CIA Chief Richard Helms and Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Ex-Congressman Laird was concerned about the bombing for fear of political reaction at home; Rogers and Kissinger were scarcely more enthusiastic, though evidently less concerned about what might happen politically. Finally the President made up his mind. Top-secret instructions were sent in code via satellite to the B-52 bases and to the Seventh Fleet. Next day he sent the order to raid Hanoi and Haiphong. Within...
...Hanoi to bargain before. Quite the contrary, Lyndon Johnson got the North Vietnamese to Paris in 1968 only by stopping the bombing north of the 20th parallel?and he got them to start talking only by stopping the bombing sorties entirely. Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rogers and Laird insisted that the Commander in Chief's constitutional duty to protect American troops justified the bombing raids. Conceivably, that rationale could cover tactical air-support missions in support of ARVN troops in South Viet Nam, where American forces remain, but it is a thinner reed to lean on to defend...
...Washington, Nixon met with his military advisers: Admiral Thomas Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of State William Rogers, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and his recently named deputy Kenneth Rush. Meanwhile Henry Kissinger convened what would turn out to be the first of almost daily sessions of the WSAG (Washington Special Action Group), which consists of ranking officials of the State and Defense departments and the CIA, who form a sort of foreign policy crisis management team...
Last week, though, ARVN did not quite live up to Defense Secretary Laird's measure of success: winning 75% of its battles. In the very first hours of the offensive, in fact, ARVN suffered only defeat. The big loser was the 3rd Division, whose troops abandoned 14 firebases below the DMZ in five days. The 3rd was a newly formed unit, raised largely by conscription, of local men, including a good many draft dodgers and delinquents. Considering the ferocity of the initial North Vietnamese barrage, retreat made sense. But it was not sensibly executed. Some units quit the field...
...talks resumed, that the North Vietnamese offensive unfolded last week. And since the offensive began, the U.S. position has hardened even further. For the first time since 1968, the American command has begun systematic, round-the-clock bombing inside North Vietnam. And Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announced late last week that the bombing would not stop until North Vietnam began "serious" negotiations with the United States. The statements by Laird and Porter have thus placed Hanoi in the position of having to beg the United States to stop bombing North Vietnam--or to overthrow the Saigon regime and forcibly...