Toward Peace at Paris?

...It must have come as a shock to the Saigon leaders when several qualified spokesmen of the new Administration, in the Senate confirmation hearings, deliberately abstained from calling for "victory," and instead spoke of the "limited" objectives the U.S...

...The "understanding" of October 31 has undoubtedly improved the prospects for peace in Vietnam...

...Measured against the skepticism of most observers last May, it can be said that during the eight months of talks between Washington and Hanoi highly significant progress has been achieved...

...He would consider it "victory," he said, if the war established South Vietnam's right of self-determination...

...to their permanent exclusion from the legal political life of South Vietnam...

...If the Nixon Administration, as seems likely for the time being, continues to seek peace through negotiations, the split between Washington and Saigon, which the "understanding" of October 31 revealed, is bound to widen...

...It suffers from misconceptions which, if not abandoned, make a compromise solution quite impossible...

...If one says that talks should have begun four years earlier, it is also true that Washington and Hanoi opened them without sufficient preparation, once political and military considerations convinced both sides that a compromise might be preferable to continuing the war...

...Does the Nixon Administration yet realizes that the war cannot be liquidated as long as the present Saigon leaders remain in power...

...The talks were deadlocked from the beginning, by the conditions under which they had been started...

...That their influence is still great became evident when the outgoing Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford found it necessary to denounce their concept publicly...

...Sound advice, which, however, has already been given in vain over the last fifteen years to every one of South Vietnam's anti-Communist governments...

...More important in the eyes of Thieu and Ky was that the Democratic National Convention had rejected a mild peace plank, and that Mr...

...lithe U.S...

...Even Dean Rusk and General Abrams agreed the bombing halt could now be risked...

...Harriman, Johnson's COMMENTS AND OPINIONS chief negotiator, in his Paris farewell speech on January 13, decried talk of "victory," described the goals of the United States in Vietnam as "limited," and expressed the hope that the American people would not talk "about winning a war...

...Furthermore, the significant de-escalation that has taken place in the fighting can be ascribed only to the declining number of Vietconginitiated clashes...

...Johnson, would probably become President and very likely surround himself with advisers no less belligerent than Bundy had once been...

...a government composed of men ready to cooperate with the NLF, in place of one that throws the advocates of talks with the NLF into prison...

...According to American estimates, four North Vietnamese divisions have been withdrawn from the South since last summer...

...For the Saigon clique, for most of the American military leadership, and for the many who still think like Dean Rusk, acceptance of the bombing halt and the broadened Paris talks does not mean that their old objectives have to be given up...

...The Thieu-Ky government will sabotage all efforts toward a compromise solution...

...The realization of this unwelcome fact ushered in "the quest for a negotiated settlement...

...Kissinger's conclusion, not unlike that of Bundy, was that the United States could no longer achieve its proclaimed objectives in Vietnam "within a period or with force levels politically acceptable to the American people...

...American pressure to bring about the "interim" government with which the NLF can negotiate will hardly be required, provided Washington continues to do what had to be done to get the widened Paris talks started: COMMENTS AND OPINIONS break all attempts by the Saigon government to sabotage progress at the peace talks...

...The NLF and Hanoi will never agree to what still seems to be the core of Washington's terms for a political settlement: that the NLF, in return for the right to participate in elections, dissolve their military units, recognize the legitimacy of the present regime, and agree to elections under the present constitutional structure...

...As to the Vietcong, they lacked aggressiveness because their losses last winter and spring had broken their offensive capabilities...

...In a speech on August 27, 1968, President Thieu still affirmed that his regime "would never ac cept any Communist to run for election in Vietnam," and "when we say `one man, one vote,' we mean the vote would only be given to Vietnamese citizens who deserve it...

...At this game, Nixon can be expected to be no less adept than Johnson...

...But this American retreat, facilitated by Hanoi's skillful diplomacy, does not mean that the entire American leadership has renounced all hope of a military solution and is now ready to accept a political settlement even at the risk that the Communists may achieve "with the ballot" what they failed to bring about by force...

...All of this was made apparent by the Tet offensive, which delayed—"perhaps indefinitely —the consolidation of governmental authority, which in turn is the only meaningful definition of `victory' in guerrilla warfare...

...The aim of this strategy had been the de: COMMENTS AND OPINIONS struction of the enemy's main forces in largescale operations...

...The leaders of the Vietcong must have been surprised to learn that the achievement of their goal would turn out to be a victory for the U.S...

...The propaganda claims of these circles have restored their belief, briefly shaken after last year's Tet offensive, that militarily and politically, the Vietcong is in rapid decline...

...With the sophistication for which he has become known, Kissinger offered to the new American leadership the arguments needed to justify giving up the war...

...For Mr...

...Contrary to what President Johnson said in his ill-inspired speech on Vietnam in Detroit on August 19, 1968—that the Vietcong "seek a solution by bullets rather than by ballot"—it is the ballot on which the Communists confidently base their hopes for final victory, and it is the "bullets" provided by the United States that enable the present regime to deny the ballot to its opponents...

...IV BUT THE CONCEPT of those who want a settlement permitting the United States to withdraw its military forces from Vietnam also does not promise an early end to the war...

...after a basis for fruitful talks had finally been created in five months of secret talks...

...It took ten weeks to overcome Saigon's refusal, and the first session of the enlarged talks was rescheduled for January 25, 1969...

...Kissinger sympathizes with Saigon's refusal to accept equal status with the NLF, and he deeply deplores the "public rift" between Wash ington and Saigon which has been brought about by admission of the NLF to the Paris talks...

...This parting move of his Vietnam policy would reinforce his claim to be given credit for having opened the road to a peaceful settlement in case it really came about—without having to accept the blame if such a settlement should reveal that the entire American effort in Vietnam had been in vain...

...The bombing will then be resumed, the Paris talks broken up, and the all-out war against the North long advocated by these people as the only promising course can at last be started...

...The Saigon clique, unaware of the profound changes that had taken place in the United States during 1968, confidently expected the Nixon Administration to revert to the policy Johnson had insisted was vital to the security of the United States...

...Nixon's chief adviser on Vietnam, Henry A. Kissinger, saw no reason, after being called to Washington, to withdraw an article written for the January 1969 issue of Foreign Affairs in which he too advocated a negotiated settlement of the war...

...The "understanding" of October 31 confirmed what most observers suspected: the task of the delegates had not consisted merely in delivering predictable propaganda statements...

...allegedly had always pursued in Vietnam...

...Although undoubtedly better informed than most people, Kissinger nevertheless confessed to be unable to "disentangle from public sources" whether the Saigon government understood that the formula for the widened talks announced on October 31 "amounted to giving the NLF equal status" in the Paris negotiations...

...A real deadlock developed only after the announcement, on October 31, of the "understanding" between Washington and Hanoi, i.e...

...When Vice-President Ky was asked what he thought about Kissinger's article, he replied, with his customary lack of inhibition, that it was "junk...

...For America's unreformed "hawks," the "understanding" of October 31 requires not only an end to Hanoi's support for the Vietcong, but also a one-sided de-escalation of the war: the Vietcong must abstain from attacking cities and other places that are the centers of Vietnamese and American military power, while the Saigon troops, in "police actions" vigorously supported by American forces, proceed to de feat the guerrillas...

...Contrary to a widespread assumption, this, does not mean that Washington, for the sake of peace, will have to "impose" a so-called coalition government on Saigon, i.e...

...Even the bombing halt is quite acceptable to these people, since they are convinced that it will turn out to have been only a bombing pause...

...had maintained the bombing of the North below the 20th parallel and had refused to recognize the NLF as a partner in negotiations, even the slight hopes for peace aroused by the Paris talks last spring would by now be dead...

...On the lower levels of American propaganda, the claims were that these vanish ed divisions had been "battered," that they would be fit for combat only after having been re-equipped, and that they were in Laos and near the Demilitarized Zone, ready to re-enter South Vietnam...

...Nixon's little-noticed comment last October that the Vietcong, so far as he was concerned, could not only vote in South Vietnam but [could] also participate in the South Vietnamese Government, provided they gave up the use of force and agreed to accept democratic processes...

...but how long the new talks will last and what their final outcome will be, no one can predict...

...The NLF cannot be expected to disarm as long as the present government remains in power, and it will agree to elections only after this government is removed...

...Since early in 1968, even those who still seek a military solution have recognized that talking peace and entering into negotiations have become expediencies without which the old aim of trying to "win" the war could no longer be pursued...

...Attention must also be drawn to the largely unrecognized concessions Hanoi made for the sake of obtaining a complete halt in the bombing of the North...

...Fierce opposition by the Saigon clique must be expected against every new step toward a compromise...

...Kissinger defines America's "limited" commitment as follows: First, the United States cannot accept a militarydefeat or a change in the political sructure ofSouth Vietnam brought about by external military force...

...Thieu and Ky, frequently delighted by the counsel Johnson had received from McGeorge Bundy, paid no heed to Bundy's speech on October 12, 1968, in which he said that the cost of the Vietnam War to the U.S...

...However, the strategy pursued had the absurd result that "80 per cent of American forces came to be concentrated in areas containing less than 4 per cent of the population...

...For Nixon, the legacy of an unresolved conflict with Saigon would have been highly unwelcome...

...The theory was that the defeat of the main forces would cause the guerrillas to wither on the vine...

...willingness to make concessions, and to impose them on Saigon...

...Once the real obstacle to productive talks was removed, this secondary issue was instantly settled...

...Saigon's refusal to participate in talks at which the NLF was represented by a separate delegation required another ten weeks of secret struggle— not, however, between Washington and Hanoi but between Washington and Saigon...

...A Saigon delegation did appear in Paris soon afterwards, but only to state the refusal of the Thieu-Ky government to participate under the conditions agreed upon by Washington and Hanoi...

...Apparently afraid to draw the unpleasant conclusion which logically flows from his own sound premises, Kissinger urges Washington to propose to the Saigon regime "to broaden its political base so that it is stronger for the political contest with the Communists which sooner or later it must undertake...

...Better let the South Vietnamese settle their political future without any American interference and then accept whatever "freely negotiated" outcome talks between the Saigon regime and the NLF produce...

...In any case, Johnson himself would no longer be re ill COMMENTS AND OPINIONS sponsible when truly painful concessions might have to be made...

...Johnson, the decision to stop the bombing and agree to a Vietcong delegation at the Paris talks cannot have been very difficult...

...When, on October 9, Hanoi offered to accept the Saigon government at the Paris talks if the NLF were also admitted, the stage was set for the "understanding" of October 31...

...Undoubtedly hoping that no one would fully realize the political implications of his words, Secretary of Defense Laird also offered the comfortable notion that the expected negotiated settlement would actually be a victory for the United States...

...Hedrick Smith, discussing this remark in the New York Times of January 19, wrote this would seem to be "in keeping with Mr...

...quickly to eliminate them as a threat to the Saigon regime requires only that they be deprived of further support from Hanoi...

...By now, however, the political evolution, bound to take place in South Vietnam if progress is made at all in Paris, will make any genuine "broadening" of the present Saigon regime only a step toward its replacement...

...second, once the North Vietnameseforces and pressures are removed, the UnitedStates has no obligation to maintain a government in Saigon by force...

...What the NLF demands is an "interim" government with which it can enter into talks about election procedures...

...Since Hanoi no longer objected to the presence of a delegation from the "Saigon Administration," the blame for holding up the widened talks fell on Saigon...

...This much, however, is certain: Only if Washington is ready to accept, and, if necessary, hasten the disappearance of the Thieu-Ky government, can we hope for decisive progress toward a negotiated settlement of the war...

...Thus it came about that the powers seeking a settlement of the Vietnamese war were confronted with the first major "substantive" issue, in the ridiculous disguise of a quarrel over the shape of the conference table...

...The talks have confirmed an essential fact: that progress in the negotiations depends primarily on U.S...

...II THIEU AND KY were not the only ones to be surprised when the expectation that Nixon would abandon Johnson's cautious policy of negotiations proved to be wrong...

...On the contrary, nothing could have pleased Hanoi more than this demonstration of the fact that no progress was possible unless Saigon was forced to follow Washington's lead...

...He warns against "imposing" a coalition government on Saigon, fearing that this "may well destroy the existing political structure of South Vietnam and thus lead to a Communist take-over...

...The Thieu-Ky government rejected the American device (to which Hanoi had agreed) that each side was free to consider the other as only one and itself as two parties to the talks...

...If it turns out, as Kissinger warns, that "Hanoi cannot be asked to leave the NLF to the mercy of Saigon," so much the better...

...Other statements, largely overlooked because of Mr...

...Saigon demanded a seating arrangement designed to make the two-way character of the conference explicit—a request that was contrary to the Washington-Hanoi "understanding," since it meant that Hanoi and the NLF agreed to regard themselves as only one party to the talks...

...Had Saigon agreed to accept this formula before Johnson announced that the widened talks would begin on November 6, and had it only belatedly realized that recognition of the NLF in whatever form was bound to prejudice irrevocably the final settlement...

...He could leave it to his successor to decide between such concessions and trying again, at even higher costs and casualties, for a military solution...

...Since "a partial settlement foreshadows the ultimate outcome," giving to the NLF equal status meant no less than acceptance of their demand to be an important component in the power structure of postwar South Vietnam— and to prevent this has been Saigon's constant aim...

...No progress at all could be expected if Saigon were allowed to veto de facto recognition of the NLF as a conference partner...

...In contrast to the military, Kissinger called last year's Tet offensive "the watershed of the American effort," and said that it "overthrew the assumptions of American strategy...

...For Hanoi and COMMENTS AND OPINIONS the NLF the shape of the table mattered not in the least, as long as it did not oblige them to accept the Saigon contention that the NLF spokesmen were only members of the Hanoi delegation...

...American propaganda has not acknowledged these facts as possibly a part of the "reciprocity" demanded by Washington, and Hanoi could hardly say that troops that had "never been" in the South had been withdrawn...

...Their main work was done secretly...

...Washington obviously knew that this would not be accepted by the other side...

...Nixon, apparently not yet as tired of the war as Mr...

...But if the talks continue at all, even Henry Cabot Lodge will learn that progress can be made only through concessions to the NLF at the expense of the Saigon regime...

...The answer is not clear...

...A few weeks earlier, after several U.S...

...Up to the beginning of 1969, the Saigon leadership completely ignored the evidence of American disenchantment with the war, the most dramatic expression of which was Johnson's decision last spring not to seek re-election...

...But this purely military approach mistook the nature of this war, in which the aim should have been to establish political control over the population...

...Harriman of course knew of Nixon's message to President Thieu saying that the new Administration wanted the Saigon regime to accept the deal Johnson's negotiators had concluded for the opening of the widened talks...

...1 AT TIM END of October 1968, after 28 sessions, it seemed no progress had been made at the Paris peace talks...

...Progress was prevented by Hanoi's insistence on an unconditional cessation of all bombing of the North, and by the refusal of Washington to halt the bombing without some "reciprocity" by Hanoi...

...If, in spite of these operations, the much discussed "lull" in the fighting remained unbroken while the conditions for resuming the Paris talks were being negotiated, the reason obviously was the enemy's consistent restraint...

...and he was aware that he was addressing himself to people who, far from regretting what the United States had done in Vietnam, were only sorry it had not been successful...

...Contrary to public statements made by both parties, what prevented the beginning of productive talks was not disagreement over the role of the Saigon government and the NLF in peace negotiations...

...Unless Nixon was willing openly to reject the idea of a peaceful settlement, the first act of his Administration in regard to Vietnam could only have been to threaten Saigon with pressures stronger than Johnson had been willing to apply...

...In order to exploit the enemy's alleged weakness, the American command maintained, and for a while increased, its own "search and destroy" operations, at a cost of 8,000 American lives since the start of the Paris talks...

...If Washington, still divided over the course to take in Vietnam, is lukewarm in pursuit of peace, Saigon can only be described as hotly opposed to it...

...11I AMERICAN DIPLOMACY, contrary to American propaganda, secretly took the enemy's military restraint for the "signal" that had been requested from Hanoi as a condition for a complete bombing halt...

...Nixon's reputation as a hard-liner on Vietnam, indicated that his Administration would continue the course Johnson had begun last spring...

...had become "plainly unacceptable," and that "its penalties upon us all are much too great...

...This line was taken not only by the new Secretary of State William Rogers but also by Nixon's hawkish Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird...

...a government with NLF participation...

...Nor could Hanoi have been interested in shortening the spectacle of disunity between Washington and Saigon that the beginning of real negotiations had revealed...

...Suddenly, on October 31, President Johnson announced that all bombing attacks on North Vietnam would cease as of November 1 and that, on the basis of an "understanding" between Washington and Hanoi, the Saigon government and the National Liberation Front would join the talks...

...Negotiating secretly for five months to achieve no more than a chance for the Paris talks to become productive would be an utterly discouraging fact were it not that in May 1968, when the talks opened, no basis at all existed for productive negotiations...

...They argue that these were necessary but only temporary concessions to the present mood of the American people, and that there is no harm in peace talks—provided they can be drawn out indefinitely...

...What is expected of Washington, at a much later date, is acceptance of a coalition government if it should result from democratically conducted elections...

...Otherwise peace for Vietnam will still be as remote after another eight months of negotiations as it was when the Paris talks be gan...

...FrxsT, let me provide some necessary background, and then discuss Nixon's assuming the Presidency, and how his choice of Henry Kissinger as chief foreign policy adviser may affect the Paris negotiations...

...And progress at Paris, not a request by Washington to resign, threatens the existence of the Thieu-Ky government, for as Kissinger remarked in his article, "support for the side which seems to be losing will collapse...

...Instead of a verbal assurance of some "reciprocity" prior to the bombing halt, Hanoi was now merely expected to refrain from actions that would force Washington to resume the bombing once it was stopped...

...The first meeting of the expanded conference was to be held on November 6. An NLF delegation, apparently forewarned, arrived in Paris on November 4. But by November 6, no authorized delegates from Saigon had shown up, and the scheduled meeting had to be called off...

...In other words, instead of trying to "impose" a compromise settlement on the Saigon regime, let us be content to go home as soon as North Vietnam has agreed to withdraw its forces, and thus oblige the Saigon leaders to settle their differences with the NLF as best they can...

...Nor can Nixon's willingness to join Johnson in forcing Saigon into line be taken as evidence that the new Administration is fully aware of, and ready to make, the political concessions necessary to reach a negotiated settlement...

...This was the reason why for five months the negotiations consisted of public speeches by both sides blaming each other for the fact that no negotiations were taking place, while secretly struggling with each other to find a basis for negotiations...

...And Kissinger continues: `By opting for military victory through attrition, the American strategy produced what came to be the characteristic feature of the Vietnamese war: military successes that could not be translated into permanent political advantage...

...The present Saigon regime is the South Vietnamese corollary to the American concept of a military solution of the war, of the "victory" that would have forced Hanoi to abandon the Vietcong and obliged the latter to reconcile themselves to the status quo, i.e...

...senators and Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford had publicly warned that Washington might proceed with the Paris talks whether Saigon agreed to participate or not, Ky had advised them not to open their mouths...