Editing Mayaguez incident (section)

===Third NSC meeting===
Just before 05:00 EDT on 14 May a message arrived in the Department of State from the [[Embassy of the United States, Tehran|US embassy in Tehran]]. The subject line was "Chinese Embassy Tehran Believes Mayaguez to be Freed Soon." The [[Government of Pakistan|Pakistani]] first secretary had told an American diplomat that a senior Chinese embassy official in Tehran said China was "embarrassed" by the Cambodian seizure of the Mayaguez and expected it to be released soon.<ref name=Lamb/>{{rp|35}} The message was passed on to Kissinger who claimed it was of dubious reliability and it was not circulated among the NSC.<ref name=Lamb/>{{rp|76}}

Ford chaired an NSC meeting at 10:22 EDT (21:22 Cambodia), where the Air Force rescue plan was cancelled due to the loss of ''Knife 13'' and the fact that the containers on ''Mayaguez'' could not bear the weight of the helicopters while [[Abseiling|rappelling]] men down would expose them to gunfire.<ref name=Wetterhahn/>{{rp|79}} It was decided that it was necessary to wait for the Navy ships to arrive off Koh Tang and for the Marines to assemble in Thailand before a rescue attempt would be mounted. Ford ordered the Air Force to sink any Cambodian boats moving between Koh Tang and the mainland.<ref name=Wetterhahn/>{{rp|80}} Following this meeting Kissinger told Ford "This is your first crisis. You should establish a reputation for being too tough to tackle. This is a replay of the EC-121."<ref name=Lamb/>{{rp|70}}