The Way Out of Vietnam

...To the United States...

...Communist and non-Communist As for friendly relations with the West and cooperation in the Mekong Valley Authority, that would serve as an additional warning to China by guaranteeing a Western stake and presence in Vietnam A phased withdrawal of American forces would further underscore the protective nature of the settlement, while postponed reunification would furnish time for healing wounds and forging a truly united Vietnam But it the North's signals are motivated by a concern about China, as I think they are, certain U S assumptions require reassessment Foremost among these is the notion, expressed by Dean Rusk when he was Johnson's Secretary of State, that Hanoi is somehow a stalking-horse for Peking and therefore a negotiated settlement would advance Chinese aims And second, there would appear to be little basis for Nixon's fear of a "blood bath" following the installation of a coalition government—a fear that was the foundation stone of the Vietnamization policy laid down in the President's November 3 speech If the Communists do m the end come to dominate a coalition regime in Saigon, some individuals will undoubtedly be tried as war criminals—for instance, men like the secret police chief who shot an enemy suspect in front of an American tv camera Then, too, in some villages where conditions are chaotic, there will be both Communists and non-Communists who will take advantage of the situation to settle old scores But if Hanoi and the nlf want to preserve their independence of China, they will work toward reconciliation, for they will need to develop support among all elements of the population The Vietnamese Communists also have a stake m maintaining the sympathies of the entire outside world, which any sort of blood bath would jeopardize—especially if Western ambassadors were present in the country So it seems likely that their official policy will be one of no reprisals This view is confirmed by the expectations of persons who would otherwise be prime targets Last year, I asked 12 non-Communist or anti-Communist Vietnamese professors and university officials what they would do it the Pans negotiations resulted in an nlf-dominated coalition Would they go to Fiance...

...then we give them a veto over both the rate and degree of our troop reductions Equally significant, Nixon's plan overlooks the importance for the stability of Southeast Asia of an agreement, signed by all concerned, stipulating the future status of Laos and Cambodia as well as Vietnam This said, it must also be noted that although the Communists are signaling a deal which appears to be one we could live with rather comfortably, m the actual negotiations it might turn out that they have something in mind we cannot accept The only hint of what they mean when they speak of a coalition came last November 14 when Mrs Nguyen Thi Binh head of the nlf's Paris delegation, said in a pubhc statement that if General Duong Van Minh emerged as head of a "peace" cabinet m Saigon, "we are ready to begin conversations with him " Since the Communists have consistently refused to deal with the Thieu-Ky regime, Mis Binh's statement represents a break m the negotiating stalemate and may be a sign that the nlf would go so far as to accept a coalition headed by "Big" Minh It so, this would be very encouraging For despite Minn's declared willingness to meet with the Communists, he is certainly neither pro-Communist nor a dove On the contrary, he is the South Vietnamese Army's senior and most popular officer, who led the 1963 coup against the hated Diem regime He could form a non-Communist government far more representative than the Thieu-Ky regime, and hence one that would carry much more weight in negotiations and in any coalition that followed But we will never know precisely what the Communists have m mind unless we at least take the initial step of asking them to be specific And this Nixon refuses to do-he rejects the principle of a coalition, and will not negotiate on that basis If the foreign affairs experts who believe Hanoi and the nlf are offering an acceptable deal are right, his stand may prove as tragic as the decision to make Vietnam an American war in the first place For recent events have greatly increased the possibility of a frightening escalation, with the conflict spreading into both Cambodia and Laos Until lust a few weeks ago, the Communist positions on Laos and Vietnam were clearly quite similar The Pathet Lao had indicated a readiness to renegotiate a neutralized Laos, and after retaking lost territory on their side of the 1962 cease-fire line in their winter offensive they halted and put forward a set of proposals to reconstitute the old coalition agreed to eight years ago The March coup in Pnompenh, however, which replaced the neutralist Prince Sihanouk with an anti-Communist military dictatorship, may upset everything To pursue their combined guerrilla-political strategy, the nlf and the North Vietnamese need to use the jungle terrain in Cambodia, where they have large forces They may be willing to tolerate Premier Lon Nol's cutting off then: access to local nee and the arms and supplies they have been receiving through the port of Sihanoukville But any attempt by the under-trained, underequipped, 35,000-man Cambodian Army to drive them out of the country might well lead to a Communist decision to attack Pnompenh or sponsor a revolt aimed at reinstating Sihanouk American participation in such a Cambodian offensive would only make escalation more certain The sole redeeming feature of these events is that they provide Nixon with an opportunity to return to a policy of negotiation without political embarrassment What we now face in Southeast Asia is an entirely changed situation that requires a fresh approach, and France's proposal for initiating a new set of talkse-in ffect, reconvening the Geneva Conference of 1954-could be the answer The Communist side is currently negative to the idea But if Washington came out in favor of the French suggestion, at the same time giving private assurances that it would accept the principle of coalition, the Communist attitude would quickly change There are fleeting moments when history allows statesmen an opportunity to alter the whole course of events, the chance for a creative act that could turn war into peace or enmity into friendship Such an opportunity exists today, offering an honorable way out of Vietnam and the possible neutralization and stabilization of all Southeast Asia—if President Nixon would only seize it...

...would meet Nixon's demand more realistically within an Asian context The emphasis on all political factions being represented leads to the question of the Thieu-Ky government Hanoi and the nlf refuse to deal with the present Saigon regime, arguing that its leaders are not representative of even the non-Communists What makes the problem so difficult for the United States is that many non-Communist South Vietnamese would agree Moreover, no matter what policy we ultimately follow, a break with Thieu and Ky is inevitable Since a popular South Vietnamese government would require more U S combat support than Nixon's Vietnamization policy contemplates, and would eventually need more U S troops than Washington is willing to give, this point is bound to be reached much more rapidly under the essentially unrepresentative Thieu-Ky government Should Washington begin negotiating terms for a coalition government, the screaming would merely start sooner But whether the task is fighting or negotiating, the present Saigon regime is clearly too narrowly based The initial step in any new U S policy must be to force Thieu and Ky to broaden the government Once that is done, the problems of achieving a coalition will be greatly eased, the balance of the non-Communist forces not now represented in Saigon will themselves wish to move in this direction It does seem true, though, that the only possible alternative to a negotiated coalition settlement is Nixon's Vietnamization policy The costs of either a return to escalation or immediate, unilateral withdrawal are clearly too great to be accepted Even 2-3 million Americans might not be able to achieve a "victory" without invading North Vietnam, a course of action that would probably bring about intervention by the Chinese While the consequences of complete withdrawal are less predictable, the step would certainly create a period of instability in Asia which in prudence we should try to avoid But the Nixon policy has too many serious deficiencies The most important criticism has already been made-that it is totally unrealistic to believe Saigon alone can prevail against the combined strength of the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese And since, as we have noted, the war is sure to be lengthened by the President's program this means prolongation of the tensions here at home and a further polarization of American society Extending the conflict's duration also increases the chances of events getting out of hand and culminating in, say, Chinese intervention or a situation where complete American withdrawal is politically impossible Indeed, Vietnamization puts the United States directly in Thieu and Ky's pocket, for if our pulling out is dependent upon their government's continued survival...

...Thinking Aloud THE WAY OUT OF VIETNAM BY ROGER HILSMAN President Nixon's policy of "Vietnamization"-a gradual withdrawal of American troops, concurrent with an increase in the amount and quality of aid to South Vietnam-is based on his hope that Saigon will be able to continue the war completely alone, or at most with the aid of U S air and artillery forces The reduction in American casualties, it is believed, would not only mute the opposition at home, but make it possible to wage a "long-haul, low-cost" war Meanwhile the North Vietnamese and Vietcong, unable to bear the continued casualties and cost over a period of years, would be forced, in Henry Cabot Lodge's words either to "fade away," or work out a settlement on Washington's terms—presumably a Korea-type arrangement that leaves the South in the hands of a pro-Western, anti-Communist government According to the best information in Washington following the April 20 announcement of the withdrawal of 150.000 men this year, the Administration plans to reduce the troop level very little in 1971, to about 250,000 That will enable Nixon to withdraw another 50-75,000 troops in 1972, the Presidential election year, and to announce immediately before the election that he intends to bring home an additional 50-75,000 This is very shrewd politics, to be sure, but it ignores the larger consequences The monetary cost will be high, somewhere between $100-150 billion Much more significant, though, is the probable toll in American lives For although Nixon's plan will reduce U S casualties, we can nevertheless expect 5-10,000 fatalities in the three-year period The figure, in fact, might well go higher, because in the final analysis, the President's program represents a decision to continue the war, not to end it When all the reductions he is reportedly scheduling have been made, there will still be between 100-150,000 U S troops in Vietnam And this means that in a year or two, the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong will feel compelled to launch a major offensive directly against the Americans There are, of course, a number of other very grave drawbacks to Vietnamization But putting them aside for the moment, it is important to understand that there is an alternative The Communists have made an offer for a more or less immediate peace on terms that many foreign affairs specialists find quite acceptable Roger Hilsman, former Assistant Secietary of State for the Far East mid the author of To Move a Nation, is now Professor of Government at Columbia University Indeed, toi well ovei a year Hanoi and the National Liberation Front (nlf) have been issuing with increasing frequency a series of "signals" concerning different aspects of a possible settlement Many of these have been sent out directly, by way of American newsmen, academics and others traveling in neutral countries 01 Eastern Europe Some come through the embassy officials of various Communist nations or through their delegates at the United Nations Finally, they are contained in public statements made by Hanoi and the nlf, and are transmitted dunng private conversations that take place in between the Pans negotiating sessions Often these signals are couched in subtleties of language that laymen may find confusing Take, for example, the letter to Nixon written by Ho Chi Minh lust before his death last September In the past, it had been Communist practice to describe the "10 points" of the nlf peace proposal in such uncompromising terms as "the only possible solution But the North Vietnamese President's letter referred to them as simply "a logical and reasonable basis for the settlement of the Vietnamese problem " [Italics mine R H ] If previous experience is any guide, the shift from "the" to "a," and from words like "only possible solution" to "basis for the settlement,' was not accidental Similarly, Ho made a distinction between the "population of the South" and the "Vietnamese nation", seen in the light of other gestures, this suggests possible concessions on at least the timetable of reunification Also encouraging was his mention of the need for finding a "path that will allow the United States to get out of the war with honor " At times the signals are direct and clear Thus in Pans, the Communists have rejected the notion of an electoral solution in the South in favor of an old-fashioned political deal-a negotiated settlement based on a coalition government Although their propaganda continues to call for immediate, total withdrawal of U S forces privately they have indicated that this could be phased over two or three years, which would permit a dignified departure and help insure a peaceful transition to coalition rule in Saigon In addition, there are indications that Hanoi and the nlf would be willing to postpone reunification for a period of five to 10 years, and that the overall settlement could include international agreements guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Laos and Cambodia All of these points, I might add, have been confirmed by representatives of Communist nations in close touch with Hanoi Interestingly, too, the Communist side once told W Averell Harriman, our former chief negotiator in Paris, that after the war is over they would like to exchange ambassadors with Western nations, including the United States, and cited their friendly relations with the French in spite of the long struggle against them tor independence They also expressed interest in the so-called Mekong Valley Authority proposed by President Johnson Harriman, who has had the longest contact with the other side, is convinced that had Johnson accepted the advice given him m the summer of 1968 to heed the enemy's signals for a coalition, a settlement could have been arrived at as early as that very September He is equally convinced that if Nixon had been willing to move to negotiations on the same basis, peace would have been achieved by the suniniei ot 1969 What has not been explained, though, is why the Communists are willing to make a deal It is very doubtful that Hanoi and the nlf have decided they cannot win While they may be poorly informed on some aspects of American politics and excessively suspicious, there is reason to believe they can read the political signs in the United States well enough to know that President Nixon will find it impossible to return to a policy of escalation in Vietnam, and that even maintaining American air and artillery forces there may become politically difficult In my own conversations with them in neutral countries and Eastern Europe, both the North Vietnamese and Vietcong pointed continually to their experience with the French and expressed complete confidence that Washington would inevitably find the costs of the struggle out of all proportion to any possible U S interest On the other hand, they argued, for their side no price would be too great After all, it is their country What impressed me most was the absence of stridency, the calm confidence with which they spoke Surely Johnson's backing down from the 1968 Presidential race and Nixon's policy of Vietnamization have only served to strengthen their conviction that the United States will sooner or later withdraw Neither is there cause to believe the Communist side doubts it will prevail over the Saigon regime once the United States departs, or that it is wrong in this assessment There is currently an upsurge of optimism in Washington about South Vietnam's ability to fend for itself, because the "statistical indicators" are more favorable than ever before One would think that we have been around this particular race track too many times to be fooled again—the last wave of confidence based on this sort of evidence came just prior to the 1968 Tet offensive1 The truth of the matter is that the "gains" implied by the statistical indicators are very fragile, since most of them have been made possible by the North Vietnamese forces simply pulling back or lying low The initial purpose of the present lull was to signal a willingness to negotiate, as well as to respond to Nixon's troop reduction But we now know that other Communist countries have been advising Hanoi to continue its relative inactivity until the U S phasedown is complete In short, the North Vietnamese can dramatically reverse the entire situation by a decision to launch an offensive, or less dramatically by attacking the pacification effort itself The truly salient indicators in Vietnam aie not statistical but political And here the primary fact is that the Thieu-Ky government does not command the support of even all the non-Communist elements in South Vietnam The second is that it a leader emerged who could unite and mobilize each and every non-Com-mumst faction, the resulting alliance would prove no better than an equal match for the Vietcong alone, and would be vastly overbalanced by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese combined My own feeling is that with the help of massive U S aid and air support, the Saigon regime will be able to offer resistance longer than some of its more ardent critics realize, in the end, though, it seems obvious that Thieu and Ky cannot win North Vietnam may have its political and economic troubles, but the overwhelming evidence suggests that after 20 years of casualties, it has both the manpower and will to go on fighting for another 20 So we are left with the question of motives Why do Hanoi and the nlf want a settlement based on a coalition government when they must eventually win on the battlefield' Why don't they simply stick out the "long-haul, low-cost" war9 The reason, I think, is Communist China Thus far, the North Vietnamese have maintained their independence, even to the extent ot suffering some very concrete punitive measures for going to the Pans negotiations against Peking's advice And it seems perfectly clear that Hanoi is fiercely determined to continue to preserve its autonomy This attitude toward China on the enemy's part would seem to explain a number ot things the preference tor negotiation as opposed to having the South fall into its lap, interest in the Mekong Valley Authority, and in friendly relations with the West, and the willingness to accept a phased withdrawal of U S troops and postpone reunification A negotiated settlement formally agreed to by a dozen-odd signatories would act as a potent deterrent to China, regardless of whether it provides for an international police force Peking has goals other than Vietnam, and is judicious enough to understand what the effects upon them would be were there a blatant violation of an agreement signed by a number of world powers...

...Each answered that he expected to remain in Vietnam and to continue m his university post "What about reprisals...

...I asked in some amazement "Oh, there will be some harassment and sessions m sell-criticism, was the usual reply "But I expect to go on teaching and to draw my salary " Yet President Nlxon continues to turn away from the Pans talks, apparently because of two key issues his insistence on free elections, and the Communist attitude toward the Thieu-Ky regime He has declared that "anything is negotiable except the right of the people ot South Vietnam to determine their own fate", he feels this can only be exercised through elections, and the United States has indicated its willingness to negotiate a coalition election commission The Communist side, being deeply mistrustful of elections, rejects this position In my own conversations with them, they argued that they have been cheated on this very point before The 1954 Geneva accord called for an election, but it was never held "We all know," they added, "how easy it is to manipulate elections m Asia, with the peasant population having so little schooling, and there is simply no way to hold fan-elections where Saigon has troops' In the Communists' view, the way to insure the right at the people to determine their own fate is to permit the leaders of all the different political tactions to form a coalition government, which might subsequently be ratified at the polls A political arrangement of this kind, they feel...