know of any existing effort to address that. it's a very serious problem. you hit it on the head. some of it is gatekeeping. eventually when some of those make it an intercom you see it's really top-notch in many of them. there is history of an african young female doctor in texas, i think it was texas. for a long time they would not let her, and eventually she got it. that brought a patient to the hospital. she took a look at him and said oh, you're going to get a

cardiac arrest and she kept saying cardiac arrest. she was able to sense that because she could read things faster. a number of people were kept out of the workforce who would be very productive members of society who would contribute but the gatekeeping keeps them out. i hope we will get around that because it's not ok. finally, i took, what do you call it, the blue van, the air shuttle from dulles.

i kept asking, where are you from? kenya. you could see the level of education. i said, do you mind my asking what is your background? engineering. how far did you go? phd. so a phd is drying -- driving the shuttle from home to airport. anyway, i will leave it there. >> lets thank our panel for an illuminating discussion. will all of you be available for questions? great. lunch is served in the other room. you can bring your lunch in here and have something to eat. obviously a huge issue related to immigration. our panel this afternoon at 2:30 is going to deal with immigration and labor l.a. have some excellent panel is for you,

so we will see you for that discussion. >> you're watching american history tv. follow us on twitter at c-span history for information on her schedule of upcoming programs and to keep up with the latest history news. >> drawn american history tv on april 9 and 12 for live coverage of ceremonies marking the 180 anniversary of the surrender it appomattox. robert e lee met ulysses s. grant at the appomattox courthouse in surrendered his army of west virginia. we will be live on both april 9 and 12 and historians, including the university of richmond's ted ayres reflect on life bottle

battles. we will bring reenactments of some of the key moments from 150 years ago and will open our phone lines to take your calls for the authors. the surrender it appomattox, live april 9 at 12 here on american history tv on c-span3. >> up next, a discussion with former members of president nixon's national security council staff on what is described as the golden age of american diplomacy. topics include the paris peace accords and relations with china. the national archives cohosted with the richard nixon foundation as part of the nixon legacy forum. it is almost two hours. geoffrey: good morning. i am here to welcome you on behalf of the nixon foundation. it is a wonderful partnership. david is responsible for 12

billion documents. some 43 million pages of wish he left at the nixon library in california. and we have the people who created the documents. if you're old enough to remember warren beatty and "shampoo," he has the hair and we have the documents. we have done over 30 of these. and i've helped produce of them. says my experience on nixon's staff was on the domestic side and that did not include foreign affairs. we stumbled upon a brilliant and helpful counterpart at it is my pleasure to introduce. that is kt mcfarland. you know kt as a fox analyst. everybody has to start

somewhere. kathy troia started as a typist on the graveyard shift when she was a sophomore at george washington university. kt: i was a freshman. geoffrey: my facts are wrong. she grew in stature and importance under nixon. under president reagan, she was a contributing member of the national security council. she has kindly conceded to moderate. and in that particular series, this is a third wind. and it is very happy to introduce kt. thank you. kt: thank you. i want to add thanks to all of us from the nixon-kissinger community, the importance of doing this. the documents are one thing but to hear from the people who made history is a great addition not only to the nation's knowledge

but the next generation of americans who will have to grapple. as geoff pointed out, this the third in a series. we covered -- to cover so far have been the reorganization in structure and sudden diplomacy and china. five years of the administration, many called in the golden age of diplomacy. this one is going to focus on the vietnam war, negotiations and the paris peace accords. it was one of the biggest problems that exist faced when he walked in the door and took office. it is difficult today in 2014 to comprehend the vietnam war.

the country had already -- was already on the edge because of the kennedy and martin luther king assassinations. and the draft meant every family was affected. we had over half a million american troops halfway around the world in a war we cannot seem to win but we do not know how to end. there were demonstrations across the nation. young man burned their draft cards. some fled to canada to avoid going to war. as the war dragged on, the antiwar sentiment crept across the country. lyndon johnson, who was the president, had no choice but to withdraw for reelection. in november 19 68, richard nixon became president and inherited a full-scale war in southeast asia. the war went on to become one of the seminal events of the 20th century.

ultimately, 50,000 americans lost their lives. it shaped military leaders and leaders. men here today helped hammer out the paris peace accords. i want to introduce william smyser. he served in germany with u.s. forces. including as a witness to the berlin crisis in 1961, the beginning of the cold war. he was an advisor in 1969 and became a senior member of kissinger's national security council. he was responsible for vietnam affairs. after leaving in 1971, he served

as political advisor and became deputy high commissioner for refugees and he is now a perverse or at georgetown university. next is winston lord. he was one of kissinger's closest advisers. he worked on every aspect of foreign policy including the china, arms control negotiations, peace talks. weston went on to become president of the council of foreign relations and assistant secretary of state and u.s. ambassador to china in which he helped develop a diplomat relations. john negroponte was an officer in saigon in the late 1960's before joining the delegation. he was at the first paris peace talks. he went on to work on the -- he later served as ambassador to honduras, mexico, and iraq.

he was also an assistant secretary of state and secretary and most famously known as the first director of national intelligence after the september 11 attacks. i want to turn to the effectiveness of the national security staff. kissinger establish one of the most successful steps in history. that was very small by today's standards. in the kissinger era, there were probably 35 members and equal number of support staff. compare that today to about 1700. the kissinger staff, they went on to dominate a generation of american diplomacy. as i mentioned, these men went

on to other positions. i want to get back to the beginning and get the personal story from each of you. how did henry kissinger who was looking for the most brilliant people, how did he find you? professor smyser: i am not sure i was brilliant but i got to know him and i was doing graduate studies at harvard. later when he came to washington to work on the national security, he knew i was there and so he asked me to join him. kt: had you been in vietnam before? professor smyser: i had been with kissinger in vietnam when he went to vietnam at the request of lbj to see what the situation was. i was the control officer. henry kissinger was -- [laughter] >> an oxymoron. professor smyser: oxymoron. i didn't and tried to give the best possible introduction to

vietnam including -- [indiscernible] and others. the point was that was where i first met him on vietnam. kt: the two of you were in vietnam before kissinger came in before next was elected and that's when you met him. >> that is correct. we were in saigon. i was recording officer and i carried a particular area and when henry came out, i was assigned the task of taking get to the northern part which is called in -- that is how i got to know henry and then i went to the paris peace talks as you mentioned and i was recruited. kt: i do not know if it destroyed not but there's a story when kissinger was in saigon --

john: indeed. he was there as an advisor. on one of his last days there was november 1, the anniversary, there was a big parade and site gun my apartment overlooks the parade route. i had champagne breakfast. and when henry came, dick brought him up to my apartment. when he got up there, he realized he lost his wallet. he lost his white house pass. [laughter] professor smyser: we took him to a cabaret. kt: is this a story we can say? is it a pg story? professor smyser: of course.

the idea was he wanted to meet some characters that were not in political office. we took him there and he got up to the bar and a young lady of certain background came up to meet him. and rather touched him tightly. he turned to me and said [indiscernible] [laughter] professor smyser: that was a pretty thorough briefing. kt: i do not know how you will top that one. winston: i was working in the pentagon in 1968. [indiscernible]

moore asked him. i was interviewed by henry for half an hour and it went pretty well. i started out with moore doing 2 things. one was, putting it under the nes system. the agendas, briefing and implementation. the other was a many policy planning where we sent a memo, look into the future and playing devils advocate. the idea i was doing that the

first year on the staff in 1969, i sent henry several memos some which were critical. this is the point that henry does like yes men or yes women. i caught his attention to these memos. in february of 1970, i was very fortunate because i did not have expertise like these guys on the vietnam, others on china, others on the middle east. he wanted one person with him at all times with these developments so we could have a global perspective. the impact with relations on china and russia and on. i got to participate in all of these initiatives. and i was with the real experts. professor smyser: henry said [indiscernible] [laughter] kt: let us state the stage for history.

when nixon took off we were in war. what was the context? why were we in vietnam? professor smyser: the french wanted us to be in their and we did not want to be as involved as they wanted to. they asked us to drop an atomic bomb when it was surrounded by vietnamese troops. nixon refused to do it. we were very cautious particularly about anything that had to do with china. then john kennedy became president. kennedy felt that even though he didn't want to drop a bomb either -- i can't remember -- counterinsurgency. one of his ideas was a savvy and know was -- was vietnam was the place to practice. [indiscernible]

kt: where were we went president johnson was in office? what happened? professor smyser: by the late 1960's, it became clear that counterinsurgency could not win the war. and counterinsurgency could not defeat them. so we had to send in american truce. kt: you were in saigon at the time. john: i was there from 1968-1969. what you had was hanoi decided in 1964, maybe late 1963 to overthrow. they couldn't win the war just to buy political means alone and they had to ratchet up the level

of violence. let's have no doubt about it, it was to reunify the country. they introduced north vietnamese troops. by the time we left, the administration from johnson to nixon, we had 510,000 troops. winston: it was more than that. john: there was something like 10 regular divisions in vietnam. this insurgency in 1969 evolved. large-scale escalation. kt: it started as a small scale counterinsurgency. professor smyser: i would call it mission escalation. john: it is also a demonstration. poor as they were, we are prepared to go to just about any

less to achieve. kt: what was happening in the united states at the time? 1969 he comes into office, what was nixon thinking when he took the oath of office about vietnam? winston: there was some foreshadowing in an article he wrote that suggested opening in china and also asia generally and after vietnam. no matter how it came out, we were going to look like we lost or one or in between. during the campaign he gave suggestions of a strategy, no actual [indiscernible] he did not say that. when he got into office, it was clearly the most urgent issue he had to face. it was clear that he was under

tremendous domestic turmoil and escalating threat in american involvement in southeast asia. he was caught in between the desire of many in the u.s. to get out and the military powers. he and kissinger had a real dilemma. future historians a young people got to remember the context he inherited. and judging how he and kissinger did. it was a very tough challenge. the first thing they did was to reissue a memorandum to all of the agencies, gathering every conceivable type of information we code from the state

department, the cia, the pentagon, the military development -- every conceivable aspect we could collect information. i was in charge of helping to collect at this. i was orchestrating it. one of the people i worked with went on -- he went on to become a real job or not. we assembled that in order to have nixon and kissinger make up their minds on what kind of strategy they wanted to pursue. they probably had ideas before the study. all of the information helped to shape it. one option they had, look, the democrats did this. not our fault. we are just going to get our prisoners back and get the hell out. nixon rejected that because our position in the world of sacrifice and credibility of america and its allies and what it would do to our world position. the other was incredible escalation trying to force north vietnam to be more reasonable.

i think nixon and kissinger felt domestic support for the war would not be under those circumstances. they chose a middle passage which they felt was a way to get an honorable and into the war. it consisted of two main elements into supporting elements. one was to successfully turn over to the south vietnamese this would take several years, training and supplies and would have them take in the u.s. would be able to withdraw successes segments. they had to realize they had a sense of urgency. above all, it would maintain support and the united states of continuing involvement. people can see the proverbial

light at end of the tunnel. second main element was negotiations. we stayed aside and had to be done secretly in order to be 'possible success. there's no other way to get others involved, propaganda exercises so had to be a secret. supporting elements was china and russia. the 2 major patrons. to improve relations with them to isolate psychologically hanoi. at least the urge hanoi to be reasonable. at that use military pressure when required especially with north vietnamese provocation. and the one flaw in this and nixon and kissinger understood there was a certain tension between gradual u.s. resolve.

unilateral withdrawal. and negotiations. because you could argue that the north vietnamese knew we were getting out anyway and they might be strong enough to take on the south of themselves. kt: leverage he might've had was not there? winston: it was not any better off than -- without an endless involvement. secondly, we planted hope to get the vietnamization to get the training to tackle the north vietnamese and the vietcong and hanoi would be forced to negotiate and we were forthcoming go that and they can see over time. kt: you were there?

john: can i mention two points. one with regard to the position. dr. kissinger's book on the negotiations dedicated among others to general abrams. there is an important point. in 1964 when lbj had to choose the next commander, the next american commander, he had to choose between 2. regrettably, he chose moreland. moreland took emphasis on the americans doing the fighting. he stuck to that right to the end of his command. as abrams came in and his view of how to fight this war, it was nicely with that henry and kissinger approach of training the south vietnamese troops to fight.

the reason i think vietnamization is so important is a principal that is and others in the future. what we did in afghanistan and what we are doing in iraq. the second point although winston was not there and dick there were secret negotiations. and they never got very far. they did get so far as to achieve a halt at the end of 1968, in october of 1968 and they ended up getting a seat at the table with the vietcong and the south vietnamese. prior to that, we had been conducting these talks unilaterally. kt: we are talking about north vietnamese as south vietnamese who are the other groups?

professor smyser: they were all controlled by the same group. the chinese communist party which had been developed before world war ii and at one point, had cut ties with the u.s. they were groups that wanted to fight against the west in order to make it truly independent. and so they were people who would normally been our friends but because the french were also allies, we could very well work with the vitamins because -- with of enemies because that would be against the french.

working with allies in europe and working with countries that actually wanted to be our friends in asia. it was a very difficult situation. in the best thing to do was just to work with our friends in europe and tried to help our friends in europe achieve some kind of peaceful settlement for their war with independent people are those seeking independence. it was never quite right and never worked quite a the way we wanted it to work. it was one of the problems. it was one of the real problems that we faced because we were stuck between people who wanted to be our friends and whole we wanted as friends but two were fighting each other. one of the most difficult situations in national politics and input a bunch of people underscore me. it is worthwhile to look at this as a situation of equitably

difficult for the management of foreign affairs. john: to underline his point the north vietnamese always acted out the charade and had no troops, it was all vietcong and a civil war. their rationale was we undermined elections which have been agreed upon. they had a right to challenge on this front. the fact is that in this was not a civil war primarily. it was more vietnamese invasion into viacom. kt: will you talk about another part of the decision nixon made was to have negotiations? you were already negotiating publicly in geneva. in paris and that was going nowhere? john: we were negotiating publicly and privately and we had some secret talks. and we reached an agreement that just on the eve of the

presidential election in 1968, a pattern that repeats itself for years later. the greatest pressure to reach some kind of agreement was before our election on a bombing halt exchange and we would stop bombing in exchange for them lowering the intensity of their attacks on south vietnamese cities. we also agreed the south vietnamese parties which represented at the peace talks which is what led to what for many people was an absurd discussion for many people on the shape of the table? how to shape the negotiating table in order to reflect the 2 opposite views? we felt of the viacom should not be viewed as a separate party and the south vietnamese government wanted to be separate from us. how do you achieve that in the shape of a negotiation?

we had an oval table with 2 small tables that do not quite touch they oval table. >> is sounds of a work of art. john: it was like a contest. we got so much mail from people around the world suggesting different shapes of tables. [laughter] professor smyser: an interesting thing. this was the ambassador -- and at the johnson administration. he knew very well nothing could ever be done in public so he tried very hard to get the south vietnamese to join us for secret talks. the idea was to have breaks and

during the breaks he would hook his arm and take him aside and said don't you want to have a little coffee break or a little tea? they wouldn't play that game because they wouldn't want to do something with what the russians and chinese would wonder what is going on. john: i had been responsible for finding the safe house we would be in along with the cia. he give me 200 francs out of his pocket to buy caviar. we are going to serve caviar during the breaks. i told the governor, enemies do not like caviar, they light sweet things. they like cake. so we got to the tea break and

that was all this caviar. they all went for the suite. kt: how did the nixon administration deal with this? winston: they knew the frustrations. there was an attempt to see when we could start secret talks with the vietnamese. only secret talks. in may, the president made his first speech which was how tough they were intimate progress and setting the stage what would be a difficult process and making clear the north vietnamese were tough to deal with. the next significant event was june of 1969. nixon on an asian trip. he thought about it in advance. it gets back to a point about how other issues and principles,

namely he said out we are going to be world leaders. talking primarily about asia. it had global implications. we look to our friends and allies to take more of the burdens of the frontlines. we would always provide a nuclear umbrella and train and provide aid to other countries. but to the increasingly have to take on these responsibilities. this clearly was the theory of vietnamization. we developed that in to a more general into world policy. that was the next step. in august -- let's see, it was the first secret meeting with the north vietnamese. none of us were involved in this i believe before we took over. that's was rather fruitless. that leaves to the next major

speech in november 1969. this the famous majority speech. the purpose of the speech was to rally american domestic support for continued efforts. part of that as we indicate about to the vietnamization process and he was beginning to announce incremental withdrawal as we turned over responsibility to the south vietnamese. to show american people it was not open ended up. and he turned the draft into a lottery as opposed to one of the other aspects which -- and they helped to ease the situation. the main point of the speech was very tough on the north vietnamese. and it designed to show how difficult they were. that is what happened in 1969. kt: what about the secret negotiations and how we able to have them and nobody noticed?

winston: this is quite instructive on how we did this and the logistics. when we did secret negotiations, they picked up in february. we are working all week and i'm say the work week was between 80 and 100 hours a week, literally. we have a secret meeting coming up. only a few people know about. we started secretly doing our work week, prepared for the secret negotiations. this included a memo to the president laying out our strategy on the goals for the

meeting including an exhaustive briefing on kissinger. probable north vietnamese positions, profiles of leaders. we go home from the nse, this was always done on weekends and holidays. kissinger's absence was not so glaring is a was over the weekend. if you did it during the week, you cannot get over it. we went home and everybody was exhausting. saturday morning, a white house car picks us up at our home. i do not remember how we got our classified materials on the plane. we join henry on air force 2 are one of the presidential planes. we then fly over the atlantic and into the center of france. a military airport in the middle of france because we have a cooperation of the french. john: or new orleans. winston: at one point -- on the way over -- kt: nobody noticed air force one

was landing? winston: it was not air force one. our cover was it was a training mission. john: it actually was. winston: in some ways it was. all the way over for eight hours, we are redoing the briefing. we got into the center of france, the special assistant to the president, he became prime minister. he led us to a small french airplane. we take that plane to an obscure airport on the outside where we are met by general walters. he went on to be ambassador for the u.n. he was fluent in french and loved the "james bond" aspect for he rented a car.

he checked code names. we had to encounter a safe house. the cleaning lady and we do now want her to know who we were. we go to the apartment at this time it's about midnight paris time. it is about late afternoon in washington. we have trouble getting to sleep. it is late afternoon our time. in my case, i was finally getting to sleep. about an hour or two before we had to get up which was 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. paris time. we then go into a meeting. it was 6-8 hours. verbatim notes. we finish in the meeting. [indiscernible]

we finish the meeting and we go back to the airport. we take the plane back to the center of france and get on that plane and fly over. all the way, we'll providing a memo to the president of what happened. we are typing of the transcript. we get to washington, it was about 6:00 a.m. paris time. but midnight washington time. we go to sleep and go to the office on monday. it was like the whole weekend off. john: henry was general kirschbaum and winston was colonel landry and i the junior person was -- winston: you must've been s. john: i remember newman. professor smyser: i wondered if henry would give proper credit to -- he regarded that as a nonessential question. [laughter] kt: when you were preparing the briefing materials, 2 problems.

we do not have the ability to pick up the phone to north vietnamese, how did we communicate with them? you are this staff of young guys and your sibling mountains of briefing paper, how did you do that without the state department or anybody know you were doing this? winston: like dealing with china or the russians, we had plenty of papers. also, continuing the public aspect of the war and so on and the paris peace talks. we had lots of background materials. these two guys knew a lot about vietnam. there was enough firepower for

these memos. and the relation between nixon and kissinger. nixon had to decide on a key decision and strategy for each meeting but henry would give ways and go negotiate. kt: how did you contact the north vietnamese? you were not going to the state department which would've been -- professor smyser: we were going to embassies. that is a diplomatic channel and we do not want to use a diplomatic channel. we used -- which was an army edition. that is not formal state department. kt: 1969, really nothing, a majority speech, the talks were really going nowhere and in the fighting was escalating. and in 1970, what happened in 1970? winston: there were three meetings. they do not get anywhere. this led us -- first let me say we had ongoing secretly started

in 1969 a bombing in cambodia along the border with vietnam. kt: that was part of the original nixon decision? winston: part of the decision. the problem of vietnam is they have sanctuaries in cambodia and laos which were untouchable. they would come across the border in go back over or go down the trail. it was a very tough fight. to have the sanctuaries made it harder. we bombed cambodia secretly only close to the border. it was secret. when this leaked out, there was outrage from the congress and media. the rationale of doing good and secretly was we want to hit on the border because they were coming for us is slaughtering americans and going over to cambodia. secondly, it had to be secret because -- do not like the north

vietnamese in his country and cannot do a hell of a lot about it. he cannot tolerate. then he would admit he was letting americans a bomb his territory. he fully approved of it and it was done along the order. it became very controversial. and then it leaves us, we're getting nowhere to what we call the cambodian insurgent. kt: that was in the spring -- john: i am at stanford university at the time. an interesting perspective for having seen that. i was on sabbatical. it took place in april of so. i was at the hoover institution. for those of you, they have this big glass building next door.

there was not much left of the glass. campus erupted. winston: let me explain the rationale. the nse and cabinet had to debate whether to go into the sanctuaries. or whether to do it at all. second, do you do with just south of vitamins troops are do you have american troops? and third, how do you do it? kt: how do you know you succeeded? winston: we had to do a because americans were being slaughtered. we were not extending into cambodia. we had an obligation to our troops and the south vietnamese troops to do something about it. we decided to go in there. and the south vietnamese and militarily wanted to be with them.

thirdly, however, to show it was not an evasion. it was decided. and only a few miles going and that was the basic decision. the problem was that since it was limited because of reaction and scope, it was less effective militarily? and we had to announce we were going to headquarters and no such thing existed. there was some building we could capture. the headquarters was the leadership moving around. we never got to the headquarters. it was considered less than successful. it helps speed up the vietnamization and had military impact. counterbalanced against that was tremendous domestic reaction. one other episode and just before the announcement,

kissinger did not like it yes people. he wanted to hear different views. he had five staff members who he knew was opposed and i will not get to all of the names and i was one of them. but, i was somewhat dovish in terms -- as result of this meeting we had a very stormy meeting. after the meeting, three of those and a couple of others outside of the meeting over cambodia. two whole resigned were going to resign anyway. they moved it up in order to make a statement on cambodia. they were about to leave anyway. and the other person who do not

resign was an analyst. my reasoning was not that i was a guest alike of the others were for moral and -- my reasoning was not like the others for moral reasons. i thought it was. and we had a legal right to do so. i do not argue like some of the others. all felt we were extending the war. the vietnamese extended the war. i thought it was a trade-off between the military impact and the duration and scope limited war domestically and support of the war was not worth it. i argued but i do not resign because i do not think it was a moral or ethical but a practical problem.

[indiscernible] i handed kissinger the penultimate draft. he comes in, and 48 hours it would be published. he took the draft and throws it on the ground and said it is useless which did not help my morale. [indiscernible] john: one upshot of this is a direct segue are there are resignations and so henry started casting about looking for replacement to those people. that is how i got recruited initially to be a sort of planning staff for the nse in

1970 and later on took over from dick who was running the indochina. professor smyser: can i say something general? when i look around the faces in this room and i see many faces that were not in washington alive and kicking in the 1970's. the mood of this country is so difficult to describe to anybody in that group because we were not fighting only the vietnamese, we were fighting the americans. "the new york times" would write lengthy editorials criticizing whatever it negotiating position we took. other newspapers would do the same. not all come some were quite positive. nonetheless, the campuses were literally hotbeds of resistance.

i went to harvard after having been in the kissinger staff for a while and faculty told me they would never mention to anybody that i had been on the nse because i would be kicked off the campus. and so, it was that kind of mood that was absolutely poisonous and made a very, very difficult because no matter what we did there was always somebody who would criticize. and what you do when you are fighting a war and every move you make is criticized? not by your opponents but by your friends? this was a very difficult decision. kt: i was a student at george washington university and in

1971, my university could house the students coming all of the country to participate in the demonstrations. we didn't go to class. winston: henry and nixon were better because the critics were the johnson kennedy administration who got us in the first place and then they turned. and turned on people on kissinger. and trying to end and disagree. john: and kennedy administration had not withdrawn one true. they were never prepared to step up. winston: and that made all of us

bitter. and it got us up to 550,000 troops. like i said and we are getting out, it is their fault. and a secret talks, nobody knew we were negotiating seriously. it was what the people and the new york times was calling for. and all of my friends and everybody said why are you not negotiate seriously? they considered a propaganda. i knew singly we were making every effort. and not that we had much socialized as we were never out, everybody was beating us up for work on this war without trying to negotiate an end. i'd came from paris trying to do the same thing. kt: whose decision was it to make these talks secretly?

who had the courage to do it? winston: we thought you had to do a secretly. the north vietnamese probably was not that interested in negotiating is -- except to where is out and to see if we go make this deal they could live with. they didn't want to be accused of being overly soft. what do you think, john? john: winston and i might differ slightly. i think it's important to have secret negotiations because they accompany almost any negotiation about a serious issue. i think henry had a somewhat expansive view of that which included keeping a secret from our bureaucracy. winston: that's a different issue. i've met at the public. john: i understand that.

it means you are not -- keeping somebody in the dark. kt: on one hand, you were negotiating. everything you seem to try wasn't working. and people were demonstrating and calling you "baby killers," it was a terrible time. you were keeping -- president nixon had the courage take it. talk to me about why was it kept secret from the rest of the government. was that a central? professor smyser: because everything leaks in washington. winston: that is the quick answer. [indiscernible] there is not been anybody since henry kissinger was had as much authority or power over our national security.

no one individual. kt: and the state department or any job? professor smyser: anywhere. incredibly difficult. you have to see the mood of the country. it was incredibly difficult to keep a secret. kt: because the passions? professor smyser: "passions" is a moderate word. winston: wendy secret talks became known and we had semi-secret talks in 1972 which we were not announced in advance where having talks. we would go over and have them. and we and the north vietnamese would brief the press on what happened. they were secret in a sense that nobody knew what was having on but a sanitized briefing. kt: escalation, negotiations nothing seems to happen. when did the breakthrough come?

middle 1971, kissinger made a secret trip to china. winston: we had the laos invasion and they has sanctuaries. the quick answer is, it was the south vietnamese expedition with our support because other restrictions of congress and was not really effective. and then, what happened though very significant and that's what went to stop for a moment. in may 1971, we had a secret meeting in which we set forth with nixon's full approval which became the agreement a year and a half later. essentially was the following -- military and agreement. the north vietnamese position for the beginning to what will get to was not only are we supposed to withdraw unilaterally but as we leave it no we are supposed to overthrow the governments.

professor smyser: and not forcing them to leave. winston: yes, unilaterally. nixon was prepared. he was not prepared to overthrow in our life. this is very important for history. a lot saying we could have a final agreement a lot earlier. we could not because of the break which will get to in 1972, north vietnam insisted on replacing the 2 governments.