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Show The Paper That Dares To Take A April 24, 1975 The Utah Stand Independent Page 7 SIR. ROBERT THOMPSONS U.S. VIET STAND Continued from page 1 was what was promised in 1973. When on May 6, 1974, he said, Sen. Edward back to and that Kennedys amendment to a military supplementary Q. We actually promised that we would bomb aid bill to cut $266 million for South Vietnam was! A. It wasnt made public. . . passed by the Senate by 43 votesto38.it signified that Q. It was implied, though? perHaps the major lesson of the Vietnam War is: do not rely on the United States as an ally. This vote A. What we were saying was if we find that the be one of the initial steps leading to the othersidehadnotnego;iated in good faith, the response may prove to strategic surrender of the United States. May 6, 1974, would be massive and brutal. may therefore become an important historical date. Q. Now you say that this was what we had prom- Sir Roberts interview follows: Thieu? A. Those sort of words were being used, at the end Q. Sir Robert, what went wrong in Vietnam? A. Two things went wrong. As a result of the Paris of 1972, and the South accepted the agreement, be- peace agreements, the other side had a completely cause everyone thought so at that time, and actually free hand; it didnt have to spend one man on the North thought you would, too. defense, and that left South Vietnam with a terribly Q. The Nixon Administration made certain when long border to defend which it shouldnt have had to the agreement was actually signed, that it still had the defend at all, and it enabled the North to put their authority to bomb if there were massive violations. We would have had the power, the executive would have divisions where and when they liked. the power to bomb through planes in Thailand and to Q. But the South Vietnamese in Da Nang performed shell through the ships off the coast, but the Congress poorly and some people would say that they really cut the authority off in the summer of 73. They cut it were incapable offighting. so we were unable to even threaten the North, and A. Well, Ive got a pretty good idea of what went I read in the paper today where many people spec You there. the was that the ulated that Hanoi would have never launched the of-see, wrong argument whole of the two northern regions, militarily, were un- fensive at all it if thought we were going to use those tenable in the circumstances that you had presented n South Vietnam as a result of the Paris agreement, and A. No, they wouldnt have. This is the whole point. as a result of not giving them the military aid reQ. So the only thing we could do nqw, you feel, is quired. So that made Military Region I and MR 2 untenable. The question was, should you evacuate it? the bombing of Hanoi or the bombing of their forces That would have meant giving up half the territory in the south. d A. Its more or less too late. You couldnt mount and about of the people, and pulling the troops out before the offensive took place. And this it in actual fact. I dont think you could mount it. was an argument that was going on, that militarily it Q. You couldnt mount what bombing? thinking of some possible things our government might be able to do. Assuming that we could get bombing authority back - even though you think that we don't have enough bombs isn't it possible the South Vietnamese might be willing to defend them- selves if they knew we were bombing again? A. The South Vietnamese, you've got to remem ber, have lost their certainly their four best divisions. dont see the rest standing in the present circum-se- d stances. one-thir- A. Yes. Q. Why is that? A. Well, I dont think youve got the stuff ready, available and lined up to go. Q. I didn't realize it was that bad. You said you sent a report to the President did you send it recently? A. Yes. Q. Within the last couple of weeks? A. At the end of February. Q. Dont you feel Congress facilitated the current situation in cutting off the bombing authority? A. Look, we are getting now exactly what B-5- 2s. Q. In other words, they were totally outnumbered. Q. And so you really feel it was the cut-o- ff of the bombing and the failure to give aid which were the critical factors there. A. Yes. Dont say cut off of the bombing-t- he I spoke to congressional cut off of the possible threat of bombing, and the cut staffers March, I had already put in my report to off of aid. In MR I. thc South Vietnamese werent I in the President that if the North Vietnamese commit- flying any air sorties when was out there February, afford to lose an aircraft. ted these five reserve divisions to the north we because they couldnt . Q. Why, because thev didn t have anv? would lose the lot. A. No, because if they lost one they wouldn't get Q. A nd they did commit the reserves? replacement. And the morale affected everyone; A. They did exactly that. know, the fact that you mustnt fire a bullet we you that is there that do anything feel Now, Q. you because you wont get another one. Thats the sort of could do now to prevent a complete disaster? effect it was having. what it came A. No. Except bomb Hanoi. Thats A. Oh, absolutely. Q. And outgunned? A. At the time when . a. Yes, the marines, the airborne, the 1st Division, the 2nd Division, Q AnJ four hesl? , wouU1 lhink lh WeM were about thc four esl you said in t l1' afiiuht very creditably, an in A. Well, in 72, the marines, the airborne and tin 1st Division took back QuangTri against six NVA V()U -- Jlc lla! 1 iev wd di-o- ff visions. , l0 gl.t some documentation on this be- cause the feeling here now is that they can't fight anj we tou vou S() au alone. q A. Thats absolute rot. You see, it has nothing to j0 wjh motivation. I.et me give you a good example on that one. Would the Japanese be any less motivated in 1944 than they were in 1941 they were just as highly motivated, just as patriotic kamikae and every- thing else. Well, why were the Japanese losing in 1944 then?They were losing because the U.S., through its control of the sea, had regained the strategic initiative. And the reason South Vietnam was doomed to lose this time was that the Paris agreements gave the North a complete strategic initiative. Q. But even though it did that, if somehow the Pres-deAll of a sudden we say, could use those well, youre massively violating the Paris accords and then we start to whir up those threaten still might have been able to work? to whir them up A. Oh, yes. I mean, if every credible threat had been there. But there was no credible threat. In fact, you havent got a credible threat anywhere in the world today. You know all that business, Henry Kissinger was talking about three divisions in the Middle East-w- ell, you couldnt do it. Y ou haven't got nt B-5- 2s. it Do you feel that we should think seriously about revisin ,his whole idea de,mle? f Detente has been a complete illusion all the ve aM becn fooled ,hrou8h-We Q So what do you feel the West should do in this I guess Im looking for situat,on? your words because they carry weight. Do you think there is anything that we could do now at all to save the situation? You think it 's very late, though? Sir Robert Thompson feels that "the reason South A. I think it is probably now too late, because Vietnam was doomed to lose was that the Paris youve got nothing to start back from. And the whole agreements gave the North a complete strategic point is that you wouldnt have had to use the initiative. " should have been done. But in my view, politically Q. Just threaten to use them. and psychologically, it would have been a very A. Yes. As long as the threat was there. That would do. to impossible thing have been enough. As long as the threat was acredi- eone The trouble was that when the offensive started they tried to do just that, because they realized that with the Q. Some people say, I know you yourself have five from divisions reserve North committing North said this, that the Vietnamese, the ARVN, fought very in lost. creditably, at least up until this recent move of case Vietnam against MR1, MR1 was any And they tried to get the troops out. Well, you cannot Thieus where he felt he was running out of ammuni-v do that in the face of an offensive. Its too late then; tion and had to withdraw from areas he was holding. youve got to stand and fight. Well, they got caught A. .Well, I certainly thought they fought very between the lets evacuate and stand and fight creditably through last year. They fought very schools of thought. If they had stood and fought creditably in 1972. theyd all have been slaughtered anyway. Were they lost in M R I? - Q Q. So then they cut off the aid. A. Yes, thats it. First of all they stopped the bombing and made it impossible. Then they cut off the aid so what did you expect to happen? Q. Weve written that, but Q- Con- - asked for. - Im Q. A. Well, the area thats worrying me most at the present moment is Yugoslavia. why is that worrying you the most? Because if Tito dies and the Russians come into Q a. Yugoslavia, the pressure will really be coming onto Europe. And the whole of the southern flank of NATO will go; the Russians w ill bedominant in the Mediterranean, Q. And how about Portugal? A. Yes, that's part of it. I mean from the Bosporus to the Azores we're already in pretty bad shape. q Is there anything the West can do except exhort Congress and the rest to understand the situation? . . A. My own view at the present time is that the J would have to start spending $200 billion United States 0n defense before vou could even start doing anything. Q. In other words, being credible throughout the Mediterranean and Asia, and even Europe? A. Yes. Q. Is there any particular type of weapon that we need, or anv particular sort of thing that we need? Is nuciear weapons, conventional weaponry? . , keep pace nuflear has T e behind. w,tb ,be Russians you re starting to rim are now Russlan submarine missiles and the SS-1- 9 ahead of you. Certainly you ve got to keep that A- - thJnk yur balance. But I think we ve got to do much more to keep the conventional balance. The conventional bal-- a ance is absolutely horrible. The Russians have 150 divisions and you have 16. Q You-r- e talking about worldwide? Continued on page 10 |