THE CENTRAL ISSUE
PROGRESSIVE "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" The Central Issue "President Johnson's peace offensive was well into its third week as this is written in mid-January....
...For all the headlines that accompanied our jet-propelled envoys around the world, we have been told precious little of what they had to say about what the Johnson Administration has in mind as a basis for the negotiations it demands...
...that is, we believe he is sincere if sincerity in this instance means that he greatly desires a graceful exit from the war in Vietnam...
...The importance of this issue was emphasized anew recently by the government of North Vietnam...
...Nor, he added, "can they be expected to accept any settlement that does not give them a reasonable opportunity to share in the postwar government—a government that ultimately would be determined by the Vietnamese people in an honorably supervised election...
...We believe the people of all Vietnam should make a free decision on the great question of reunification...
...This is all to the good, as far as it goes...
...Three—The United States is prepared "to withdraw its forces from South Vietnam as soon as South Vietnam is in a position to determine its own future without external interference...
...What if peace can be achieved only by accommodating ourselves to the hard realities as they exist in Vietnam today ? Does Mr...
...A United Nations presence in South Vietnam during the interim period of coalition rule would go far toward assuring adherence to the terms of the settlement by all participants in the coalition government...
...Our best clue is to be found in the letter by U. N. Ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg to U.N...
...To continue to deny the Vietcong and their National Liberation Front an independent voice at the peace table and a significant role in postwar South Vietnam is tantamount to demanding that they accept unconditional surrender and that they place themselves at the mercy of Premier Nguyen Cao Ky's harsh police state...
...For the most part, this latter step was so flamboyantly executed that it struck many observers, including some supporters of the Administration, as more an exercise in showmanship than statesmanship...
...One need not accept Hanoi's extravagant claim regarding the exclusive legitimacy of the NLF to recognize that it makes little sense, and, indeed, weakens our position before the world, to go on refusing to acknowledge the presence and the primacy of the Vietcong in much of South Vietnam...
...Indeed, a cease-fire might well be the first business taken up at a peace meeting...
...The first was the quiet decision to suspend the bombing of North Vietnam—a move long pressed by the nation's and the world's peacemakers and one that quickly won international acclaim...
...Four—The United States "desires no continuing military presence or bases in Vietnam...
...We find much that is useful and hopeful in President Johnson's current peace offensive, but we are convinced it would be decisively more effective if he acknowledged the strategic realities as they exist in Vietnam today by agreeing to accept the NLF as a party to peacemaking and as a part of an interim coalition government that would rule South Vietnam until internationally supervised free elections could be held...
...Johnson suddenly embarked on a Texas-sized venture in peace-seeking diplomacy that ranged around the world...
...The question is whether he recognizes the strategic realities of the military situation and is prepared to negotiate a truce which conforms with them...
...In its first statement acknowledging the suspension of the air raids, Hanoi accused the United States of still claiming a commitment to the "puppet regime rigged up by itself in Saigon," and still refusing to recognize the National Liberation Front, which Hanoi said was "the sole genuine representative of the people of South Vietnam...
...We seek neither territory nor bases, economic domination or military alliance in Vietnam,"he said...
...Two—There could be a "reciprocal reduction of hostilities...
...There are, he said, "no arbitrary limits to our search for peace...
...It demands a clearer commitment and a greater role...
...Walter Lippmann caught the essence of the problem when he wrote: "There is no reason to doubt that President Johnson is sincere in proclaiming to the world his desire to negotiate a peace in Vietnam...
...After months of resisting the mounting pressure for a more affirmative approach to settlement of the war in Vietnam, Mr...
...There were two principal ingredients in the new pursuit of peace...
...President Johnson has asserted that the question of NLF participation in peacemaking is not an "insurmountable problem," but the Administration has consistently refused to move beyond that ambiguity except to allow that the NLF might be represented as part of the North Vietnamese delegation at the peace negotiations...
...Ky, incidentally, continues his bitter opposition to all efforts to achieve a negotiated settlement...
...The Vietcong has done most of the real fighting these many years, controls more than two-thirds of the territory of South Vietnam, and rules over from a quarter to a third of the population...
...Although we of The Progressive were bitterly disillusioned last fall when we learned how wrong we were to have accepted the President's summertime professions of peace, we believe he is sincere now...
...Should he concur, the chances for success would be greatly enhanced if the announcement of this approach were accompanied by other proofs of peaceful purpose—the continued suspension of the bombing of North Vietnam and the emphatic rejection of the counsel of those who demand an escalation of the war...
...And Soviet troubleshooter Alexander N. Shelepin told a cheering crowd in Hanoi that "now is the time for the United States to realize that it is impossible to settle the Vietnam question without the participation of the National Liberation Front—the authentic representative of the South Vietnamese people...
...Johnson's hunger for peace include a willingness to achieve a settlement that recognizes the fact, however unpalatable, that the Vietcong today control two-thirds or more of South Vietnam territory...
...This approach to a negotiated settlement, in addition to the suspension of bombing of North Vietnam, add up to a much improved position for the United States—one that has moved a long way from the Administration's earlier, more intransigent stand...
...Five—The future political structure in South Vietnam "should be determined by the South Vietnamese people themselves through democratic processes...
...The NLF understandably refuses to be submerged in this fashion...
...Secretary-General U Thant after the former had concluded his peace mission to the Vatican, Paris, and London...
...It cannot be a glorious truce...
...President Johnson, in his State of the Union message, which added little that was new on the urgent problem of Vietnam, reaffirmed his commitment to the position outlined by Ambassador Goldberg...
...But neither the President nor Ambassador Goldberg came directly to grips with what seems at this writing to be the central political issue that divides the two sides—the role of the Vietcong and its political arm, the National Liberation Front, in both the peacemaking process and the postwar government of South Vietnam...
...It is not clear, as we write, just how far President Johnson is prepared to go in accepting a truce which conforms with the strategic realities of the military situation—not to mention the moral imperatives...
...The second was the dramatic dispatch of Presidential emissaries to a score of foreign capitals...
...Six—The reunification of North and South Vietnam "should be decided by the free decisions of their two peoples...
...We stand by the Geneva agreements of 1954 and 1962...
...President Johnson seemed to move toward embracing this position when he said significantly in his State of the Union message: "We will respond if others reduce their use of force...
...Senator George McGovern, South Dakota Democrat, who recently returned from a study of the situation in Vietnam, reported that NLF leaders are "proud and determined men" and "could be expected not to let Moscow, Peking, Hanoi, or anyone else do their negotiating for them...
...We fight for the principle of self-determination —that the people of South Vietnam should be able to choose their own course, in free elections, without violence, terror, and fear...
...Their mission, it seems, was to assure the world of America's dedication to a negotiated settlement and to enlist the support of key nations in a joint undertaking for peace...
...But sincerity is not the crux of the matter...
...There was worldwide satisfaction over the announcement that the Johnson Administration had sent a direct message to Hanoi, but the circus-like character of the rest of the performance, with American envoys suddenly dropping out of the sky from Ottawa to Taiwan, seemed so at variance with the quiet and delicate methods of serious diplomacy that many cynics were led to conclude that the President was not sincere, that he was primarily concerned with disarming his peace-minded critics at home and abroad, and providing the groundwork for a new and more terrible escalation of the war in the expected absence of an affirmative response from the Communist camp...
...In fact, there could be no better climate for strengthening the prospect for a negotiated settlement than a steady reduction of the scope of warfare until there is agreement on a cease-fire...
...The letter spelled out this six-point basis for a negotiated settlement: One—The United States is prepared to engage in negotiations either without any prior conditions or on the basis of the Geneva agreements, which call for the independence, neutrality, and eventual unification of North and South Vietnam...
...But what if there is no graceful exit...
...The Progressive strongly urges this course on the President as the most direct and hopeful route to the conference table...
Vol. 30 • February 1966 • No. 2
