Draft III - 11/11/68

The Paris peace negotiations in progress for over seven months now have been marked by the classic Vietnamese syndrome: optimism alternating with bewilderment; euphoria giving way to frustration. The halt to the bombing ushered in another wave of high hope; yet a new deadlock is more likely than a rapid settlement. A civil war which has torn a society for twenty years and which has involved the great powers is unlikely to be settled in a single, dramatic stroke. Even if there were mutual trust -- a commodity not in excessive supply -- the complexity of the issues and the difficulty of grasping their inter-relationship would make for complicated negotiations. Throughout the war, nothing has been harder than to define criteria by which to measure progress; this problem has continued during the negotiations.

The dilemma is that almost any statement about Vietnam is likely to be true; unfortunately, truth does not guarantee relevance.

- 2 -

# I. THE SITUATION WITHIN SOUTH VIETNAM PRIOR TO NEGOTIATIONS

The sequence of events that led to negotiations probably started with General Westmoreland's visit to Washington in November, 1967. On that occasion, General Westmoreland told a Joint Session of Congress that the war was being militarily won. He gave statistics defining our progress and indicated that a limited withdrawal of United States' combat forces might be undertaken starting late in 1968. On January 17, 1968, President Johnson, in his State of the Union address, emphasized that the pacification program -- the extension of the control of Saigon into the countryside -- was progressing satisfactorily. Sixty-seven percent of the population of Vietnam lived in relatively secure areas; the figure was expected to rise. A week later, the Tet offensive overthrew the assumptions of American strategy.

What had gone wrong? The basic problem has been conceptual: the tendency to apply traditional maxims of both strategy and "nation building" to a situation which they did not fit.

- 3 -

American military strategy followed the classic
doctrine that victory depended on a combination of control
of territory and attrition of the opponent. Therefore, the
majority of the American forces were deployed along the
frontiers of South Vietnam to prevent enemy infiltration and
in the Central Highlands where most of the North Vietnamese
main force units — those units organized along traditional
military lines — were concentrated. The theory was that
defeat of the main forces would cause the guerrillas to
wither on the vine. Victory would depend on inflicting
casualties substantially greater than what we suffered until
Hanoi's losses became "unacceptable."

This strategy suffered from two disabilities: (a) the
nature of guerrilla warfare, (b) the asymmetry in the definition
of what constituted unacceptable losses. A guerrilla war
differs from traditional military operation because its key
prize is not control of territory but control of the population.
This depends, in part, on psychological criteria, especially a
sense of security. No positive program can succeed unless the

- 4 -

population feels safe from terror or reprisal. Guerrillas rarely seek to hold real estate; their tactic is to use terror and intimidation to discourage cooperation with constituted authority.

The distribution of the population in Vietnam makes this problem particularly acute. Over ninety percent of the population live in the coastal plain and the Mekong Delta; the Central Highlands and the frontiers, on the other hand, are essentially unpopulated. Eighty percent of American forces came to be concentrated in areas containing less than four percent of the population; the locale of military operations was geographically removed from that of the guerrilla conflict. As North Vietnamese theoretical writings never tired of pointing out, the United States could not hold territory and protect the population simultaneously.

By opting for the first course, the United States' strategy produced what came to be the characteristic feature of the Vietnamese war: military successes that could not be translated into permanent political advantage. (Even the goal of

- 5 -

stopping infiltration was very hard to implement in the trackless, nearly impenetrable jungles along the Cambodian and Laotian frontiers).

As a result

the American conception of security came to have little in common with the experience of the Vietnamese villagers. American maps classified areas by three categories of control, neatly shown on our maps in various colors: government, contested and Viet Cong. The formal criteria were complicated, and depended to an unusual extent on reports by officers whose short term of duty (barely 12 months) made it next to impossible for them to grasp the intangibles and complexities of the local scene. In essence, the first category included all villages which contained some governmental authority; "contested" referred to areas slated to be entered by governmental cadres. The American notion of security was a reflection of Western administrative theory; control was assumed to be in the hands of one of the contestants more or less exclusively.

- 6 -

But Vietnamese realities were quite different; the security map showed few areas of exclusive jurisdiction; their pervasive experience was the ubiquitousness of both sides. The government controlled eighty percent of the country in the daytime, in the sense that government troops could move anywhere if they went in sufficient force; the Viet Cong dominated a large part of the same population at night. For the villagers, the presence of government during the day had to be weighed against its absence after dark when Saigon's cadres almost invariably withdrew into the district or provincial towns. If armed teams of administrators considered the villages unsafe at night, the villagers could hardly be expected to resist the guerrillas. Thus, the typical pattern in Vietnam has been dual-control with the villagers complying with whatever force was dominant during a particular part of the day.

The political impact of this dual control was far from symmetrical, however, to be effective, the government had to

- 7 -

demonstrate a very great capacity to provide protection;
probably well over ninety percent. The guerrillas' aim
was largely negative: to prevent the consolidation of
governmental authority. They did not need to destroy all
governmental programs -- indeed in some areas, they made
no effort to interfere with them. They did have to demon-
strate a capability to punish individuals who threw in their
lot with Saigon. An occasional assassination or raid
served to confidence for months afterwards.

Shake-

The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had another
advantage which they used skillfully. American "victories"
were empty unless they laid the basis for an eventual with-
drawal. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, fighting in their
own country, needed merely to keep in being forces sufficiently
strong to dominate the population after the United States'
forces tired of the war. We fought a military war; our
opponents fought a political one. We sought physical
attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion.

- 8 -

In the process, we lost sight of one of the cardinal maxims of guerrilla war: the guerrilla wins, if he does not lose. The conventional army loses, if it does not win. The North Vietnamese used their main forces the way a bullfighter uses his cape -- to keep us lunging in areas of marginal political importance.

The United States' strategy of attrition failed to reduce the guerrillas and was in difficulty even with respect to the North Vietnamese main forces. Since Hanoi made no attempt to hold any territory, and especially since the terrain in the Central Highlands cloaked North Vietnamese movements, it proved difficult to make them fight except at places which they chose. Indeed, a considerable majority of engagements came to be initiated by our opponent; this enabled him to regulate his casualties (and ours) at least within certain limits. The so-called "kill-ratios" of United States to North Vietnamese casualties became highly unreliable indicators. They were falsified further because the level of

- 9 -

what was "unacceptable" to Americans fighting thousands of
miles from home turned out to be much lower than that of
Hanoi fighting on Vietnamese soil.

All this caused our military operations to have little
relationship to our declared political objectives. Progress
in establishing a political base was exruciatingly slow;
our diplomacy and our strategy were conducted in isolation
from each other. President Johnson had announced repeatedly
that we would be ready to negotiate, unconditionally, at any
moment, anywhere. This, in effect, left the timing of
negotiations to the other side. But short of a complete
collapse of the opponent, our military deployment was not
well designed to support a negotiation. For purposes of
negotiations, we would have been better off with 100 percent
control over sixty percent of the country (to give us a
bargaining counter), than with sixty percent control of 100
percent of the country.

- 10 -

In these circumstances, the non-military program could
have little impact. To achieve meaningful control, the so-
called pacification effort had to meet two conditions:

(a) it had to provide security for the population, (b) it
had to establish a political and institutional link between
the villages and Saigon. Neither condition was ever met;
the former because of the impatience to show "progress" in
the strategy of attrition, the latter because there was no
concept as to how to bring it about. As a result, economic
programs had to carry an excessive load. Economic programs
produced stability in Europe because existing political and
administrative structures were threatened above all by the
gap between expectations and reality. In Vietnam -- as in
most developing countries -- the overwhelming problem is not
to buttress but to develop a political framework. Economic
progress by undermining the existing patterns of obligation --
which are generally personal or feudal -- only accentuates the

- 11 -

need for political institutions. One ironic aspect of the war in Vietnam is that while we profess an idealistic philosophy, our failures have been due to an excessive reliance on material factors: the Communists, by contrast, holding to a materialistic interpretation, owe many of their successes to their ability to supply an answer to the question of the nature and foundation of political authority. The political power of the Viet Cong where it does not drive from terror, is due to the ability to develop a framework of political legitimacy.

The Tet offensive brought the compounded weaknesses -- or as the North Vietnamese say, the internal contradictions -- of the American position to a head. To be sure, from a strictly military point of view, the offensive was an American victory. Viet Cong casualties were very large; in many provinces, the Viet Cong infrastructure of guerrillas and shadow administrators surfaced and could be severely mauled by American forces. But in a guerrilla war, purely military

- 12 -

considerations are not decisive: psychological and political
factors loom at least as large.

The Tet offensive was a political defeat in the
countryside for Saigon and the United States. Two claims
had been pressed on the villages. The Viet Cong said "do
not let outward appearances deceive you; we are the
continuing presence and power in your village and we will
punish you if you cooperate with Saigon." Saigon said:
"view our military might and know that henceforth we will
protect you from the Viet Cong."

As so often happened in the past, the Viet Cong made
their claim strike. Some twenty provincial capitals were
occupied. Though they held none (except Hue) for
more than a few days, they were there long enough to
penalize those they had labelled collaborators. Hundreds
of Vietnamese were executed on the basis of previously
prepared lists. While the words "secure area" never had the

- 13 -

same significance for Vietnamese civilians as for Americans, it applied most meaningfully to the provincial and district capitals. This was precisely where the Tet offensive took its most severe toll. The Viet Cong had made a point whose importance far transcends military considerations: there are no secure areas for Vietnamese civilians. This has compounded the already great tendency of the Vietnamese population to await developments and not to commit itself irrevocably to the Saigon government. The withdrawal of government troops from the countryside to the protection of cities and the consequent increase in Viet Cong activity in the villages even in the daytime, served to strengthen this trend.

For all these reasons, the Tet offensive marked the watershed of the American effort. Henceforth, no matter how effective our actions, the prevalent strategy could no longer achieve its objectives in a period, or with force levels politically acceptable to the American people. This

- 14 -

realization caused Washington, for the first time, to put a
ceiling on the number of troops for Vietnam. Denied the
very large additional forces requested, the military command
in Vietnam felt obliged to begin a gradual change of its
peripheral strategy to one concentrating on the protection
of the populated areas. This made inevitable an eventual
commitment to a political solution and marked the beginning
of the quest for a negotiated settlement. Thus, the stage
was set for President Johnson's speech of March 31, which
ushered in the current negotiations.

- 15 -

## II. THE ENVIRONMENT OF NEGOTIATIONS

Of course, the popular picture that negotiations began in May is only partially correct. The United States and Hanoi have rarely been out of touch since the American commitment in Vietnam started to escalate. Not all these contacts have been face to face. Some have been by means of public pronouncements. Between 1965 and 1968, the various parties publically stated their positions in a variety of forums: Hanoi announced Four Points, the NLF put forth Five Points, Saigon advanced Seven Points and the United States -- perhaps due to its larger bureaucracy -- promulgated Fourteen.

These public pronouncements produced a fairly wide area of apparent agreement on some general principles -- that the Geneva accords could form the basis of a settlement, that American forces would be withdrawn ultimately, that the reunification of Vietnam should come about through direct negotiation between the Vietnamese, that (after a settlement)

- 16 -

[y]

Vietnam not contain foreign bases. The United States has
indicated that three of Hanoi's Four Points are acceptable.¹

There is disagreement about the status of Hanoi's forces in the South; indeed Hanoi has yet to admit that it has forces in the South -- though it has prepared a "fall-back position" to the effect that North Vietnamese forces in the South cannot be considered "external." The role of the NLF is equally in dispute. Saigon rejects a separate political role for the NLF; the NLF considers Saigon a puppet regime. There is no agreement about the meaning of those propositions which sould alike or on how they are to be enforced.

In addition to negotiations by public pronouncements,
there have been secret contacts which have been described in

1. These are: withdrawal of United States' forces, the pro-
   vision of the Geneva agreements calling for neutrality
   for North and South Vietnam, and reunification on the basis
   of popular wishes. The United States has rejected the
   third point which implies that the internal arrangements
   for South Vietnam should be settled on the basis of the
   NLF program -- though the United States has agreed to
   consider the NLF program among others.

- 17 -

many books and articles.¹ It has been alleged that these contacts have failed because of a lack of imagination or a failure of coordination within our government. (There have also been charges of deliberate sabotage). A fair assessment of these criticisms will not be possible for many years. But, it is clear that many critics vastly oversimplify the problem. Goodwill may not always have been present; but even were it to motivate all sides, rapid, dramatic results would be unlikely. For all parties face enormous difficulties. Indeed, the tendency of each side to over-estimate the freedom of maneuver of the other has almost certainly compounded distrust. It has caused Hanoi to appear perversely obstinate to Washington and Washington to seem ostentatiously devious.

Both Hanoi and the United States are limited in their freedom of action because they realize that the state of mind

1. The fullest account is to be found in Kraslow and Loory, *The Secret Search for Peace in Vietnam*, Random House, 1968.

- 18 -

of the population of South Vietnam will determine the
outcome of the conflict. The Vietnamese people have lived
under foreign rule for approximately half of their history.
They have maintained a remarkable cultural and social
cohesion by being finely attuned to the realities of power.
To survive, the Vietnamese have had to learn to calculate --
almost instinctively -- the real balance of forces. If
negotiations give the impression of being a camouflaged
surrender, there will be nothing left to negotiate. Support
for the side which seems to be losing will collapse. Thus,
all the parties are aware -- Hanoi explicitly, for it does
not view war and negotiations as separate processes; we in a
more complicated, bureaucratic manner -- that _the way_
negotiations are carried out is almost as important as _what_
is negotiated. The choreography of how one enters
negotiations, what is settled first and in what manner is
inseparable from the substance of the issues.

- 19 -

Wariness is thus imposed on the negotiators; a series
of deadlocks is difficult to avoid. There are no "easy"
issues for each issue is symbolic and therefore in a way
prejudices the final settlement. On its merits, the debate
about the site of the conference -- extending over a period
of four weeks in April and May -- was trivial. Judged
intellectually, the four weeks were "wasted." But they did
serve a useful function: they enabled the United States to
let Saigon get used to the idea that there would be negotia-
tions and to maintain that it retained control over events.
It would not be surprising if Hanoi had a similar problem
with the NLF.

The same problem was illustrated by the way the decision
to stop the bombing was presented. Within twenty-four hours,
both Hanoi and Saigon made statements of extraordinary belli-
cosity which taken literally, would have doomed the sub-
stantive talks about to begin. But their real purpose was
to reassure each side's supporters in the South. Saigon

- 20 -

especially has had a difficult problem, pictured by many as
perversely stubborn because of its haggling over the status
of the NLF in the talks. However, to Saigon, the status
of the NLF was not a procedural matter. For South Vietnam
it has been very nearly the central issue of the war.

The situation confronted by Washington and Hanoi inter-
nationally, is scarcely less complex. Much of the bitter
debate in the United States about the war in Vietnam has
been conducted in terms of the categories of 1961 and 1962.
Unquestionably, the failure to analyze adequately the
geopolitical importance of Vietnam then, contributed to the
current dilemma. But the commitment of five hundred thousand
Americans has settled the issue of the importance of Vietnam.
For what is involved now is the degree to which other nations
believe they can rely on American promises. Other nations
can gear their actions to ours only if they can count on our
steadiness. However fashionable it is to ridicule the terms
"credibility" or "prestige" they are not emty phrases; they

- 21 -

are a nation's principal coin in relating itself to others.
Steadiness -- not brilliance -- was Britain's stock in trade when it was the principal stabilizing force in the world.
No doubt the Vietnamese war is highly unpopular in many countries -- though the intensity of the criticism seems to increase with distance from the scene. It does not follow that we can remove the charge of bad judgment by a demonstration of incompetence. Even critics are unlikely to be reassured by a complete collapse of the American effort in Vietnam. Those whose safety or national goals depend on American promises could only be dismayed. In many parts of the world -- the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, even Japan -- stability depends on confidence in American promises.
Unilateral withdrawal or a settlement which, even unintentionally, amounts to it could therefore lead to the erosion of restraints and thus to an ever more dangerous international situation.

Hanoi's position is at least as complicated. Its concerns are not global; they are primarily xenophobically

- 22 -

Vietnamese (which includes of course, hegemonial ambitions in Laos and Cambodia). But Hanoi is extraordinarily dependent on the international environment. It could not continue the war without foreign material assistance. It counts almost as heavily on the pressures of world public opinion. Any event that detracts from global preoccupations with the war in Vietnam huts diminishes Hanoi's bargaining position. From this point of view, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia was a major setback for Hanoi. In other words, Hanoi's margin of survival is so narrow that precise calculation has become a way of life; caution is almost an obsession. For North Vietnam, survival depends on a fine calculation of international factors -- especially of the jungle of inter-Communist relations. In order to retain its autonomy, Hanoi must maneuver skillfully between Peking, Moscow and the NLF. Hanoi has no desire to become completely dependent on one of the Communist giants. But, since they disagree violently, they reinforce Hanoi's already strong

- 23 -

tendency toward obscurantist formulations. There have been
many reasons for Hanoi's careful maneuvering prior to the
beginning of negotiations. But surely a principal reason
was Hanoi's reluctance to risk its ties to Peking and its
control over the NLF simply to find out the American
negotiating program. Cultural traits and Communist ideology
compound this wariness. In short, Hanoi's freedom of
maneuver is severely limited.

The same is true of the Soviet Union whose large aid
to Hanoi makes it a semi-participant in the war. Moscow must
be torn by contradictory emotions. A complete victory for
Hanoi would tend to benefit Peking in the struggle for
influence in the world communist parties: it would support
the Chinese argument that intransigence toward the United
States is, if not without risk, at least relatively manageable.
But a defeat of Hanoi would demonstrate Soviet inability to
protect "fraternal" Communist countries against the United

- 24 -

States. I would also weaken a potential barrier to Chinese influence in South East Asia, and enable Peking to turn its full fury on Moscow. For a long time, Moscow has seemed paralyzed by conflicting considerations and bureaucratic inertia.

Events in Czechoslovakia have reduced Moscow's usefulness even further. Any attempt by Moscow to settle the war -- and of Washington to encourage Soviet mediation -- would add fuel to the already widespread charge that the superpowers are sacrificing their allies to maintain spheres of influence. We would compound the already heavy costs of our pallid reaction to events in Czechoslovakia if our allies could blame it on a quid pro quo for Soviet assistance in extricating us from South East Asia.

This state of affairs would be enough to explain prolonged negotiations progressing through a series of stalemates. In addition, a vast gulf in cultural and bureaucratic

- 25 -

style between Hanoi and Washington complicates matters further. It would be difficult to imagine two societies less meant to understand each other than the Vietnamese and the Americans. History and culture combine to produce almost morbid suspiciousness on the part of the Vietnamese. Survival has depended on a subtle skill in manipulating physically stronger foreigners. The Vietnamese style of communication is indirect and, by American standards, devious -- qualities which avoid a total commitment and an overt test of strength. The fear of being made to look foolish seems to transcend most other considerations. Even if the United States accepted Hanoi's maximum program, the result might well be months of haggling while Hanoi looks for our "angle," and makes sure that no other concessions are likely to be forthcoming.

These tendencies are compounded by Communist ideology which defines the United States as structurally hostile and by Hanoi's experience in previous negotiations with the

- 26 -

United States, it may well feel that the Geneva Conferences of 1954 and 1962 (over Laos) deprived it of part of its achievements on the battlefield.

All this produces the particular negotiating style of Hanoi: the careful planning, the subtle, indirect methods; the preference for opaque communications which keep open as many options as possible toward both foe and friend (the latter may be equally important from Hanoi's point of view). Hanoi's diplomacy operates in phases of reconnaissance and withdrawal to give an opportunity to assess the opponent's reaction. This is then followed by another diplomatic sortie to consolidate the achievements of the previous phase or to try another route. In this sense, many contacts with Hanoi which seemdd "abortive" to us, probably served the function of defining the terrain from Hanoi's point of view. The methods of Hanoi's diplomacy are not very different from Viet Cong military strategy and seem sometimes just as impenetrable to us.

- 27 -

If this analysis is correct, few moves by Hanoi are accidental; even the most obtuse communication is likely to serve a purpose. On the other hand, it is not a style which easily reveals itself to the sort of analysis at which we excel: the pragmatic, legal dissection of individual cases. Where Hanoi makes a fetish of planning, Washington is allergic to it. It prefers to deal with cases as they arise, "on their merits." Pronouncements that the United States is ready to negotiate do not guarantee that a negotiating position exists or that the United States' government has articulated its objectives.

Until a conference comes to be scheduled, two groups in the American bureaucracy usually combine to thwart the elaboration of a negotiating position: those who oppose negotiations and those who favor them. The opponents generally equate negotiations with surrender; if they agree to discuss settlement terms at all it is to define the conditions of the enemy's capitulation. Aware of this tendency and

- 28 -

of the reluctance of the top echelon to expend capital on
settling disputes which involve no immediate practical
consequences, the advocates of negotiations cooperate in
avoiding the issue. Moreover, since they generally have
great confidence in their negotiating skill, delay serves
their own bureaucratic purposes: it enables them to reserve
freedom of action for the conference room.

Pragmatism and bureaucracy thus combine to produce
the quintessentially American diplomatic style of rigidity
before formal negotiations and of excessive reliance on
tactical considerations once negotiations start. In the
preliminary phases, we generally lack a negotiating program;
during the conference, bargaining considerations tend to shape
internal discussions. In the process, we deprive ourselves
of criteria by which to judge progress. The over-concern with
tactics suppresses a feeling for nuance and for intangibles.

These traits of American diplomacy produced, for a long
time, a massive breakdown of communication with Hanoi --

- 29 -

especially in the preliminary phases of negotiations.

This, rather than deliberate ill will, accounts for the many
false starts. While Hanoi was feeling its way toward
negotiations, it bent all its ingenuity to avoid clear-cut,
formal commitments — less because it did not want to be
committed than because of the complexity of its position.

Ambiguity permitted Hanoi to probe without giving away
anything in return. Hanoi has no peers in slicing the
salami very thin. It wanted the context of events to
define its obligations rather than a formal document which
might compromise it with Peking. Washington insisted on
legal formulae.

Washington was unequipped for this mode of communi-
cation. To a government identifying commitments with
legally enforceable obligations, Hanoi's subtle changes of
tense were literally incomprehensible. In a press con-
ference in February, 1968, President Johnson said: "As near
as I am able to detect, Hanoi has not changed its course of

- 30 -

conduct since the very first response it made. Sometimes
they will change 'will' to 'would' or 'shall' to 'should, '
or something of the kind. But the answer is all the
same."¹ A different kind of analysis might have inquired
why Hanoi would open up a channel for a meaningless
communication especially in the light of a record of careful
planning which made it extremely unlikely that a change of
tense would be inadvertent.

Whatever the might-have-beens, Hanoi appeared to
Washington as devious, deceitful and tricky. To Hanoi,
Washington must have seemed, if not obtuse, then cannily
purposeful. In any event, the real deadlock produced by
the difference in negotiating style concerned less specific
clauses than the philosophical issue of "commitment" or the
meaning of "trickery." This impasse lay at the heart of
the recently broken impasse over the bombing halt.

1. New York Times, February 17, 1968

- 31 -

### III. COMMITMENT AND RISK IN VIETNAM DIPLOMACY:
THE PROBLEM OF THE BOMBING HALT

The problem of the bombing halt occupied the first six months of the Paris talks. The formal positions were relatively straightforward. The American view was encompassed in the so-called San Antonio formula which was put forth by President Johnson in September, 1967: "The United States is willing to stop all aerial and naval bombardment of North Vietnam when this will lead promptly to productive discussions. We, of course, assume that while discussions proceed, North Vietnam would not take advantage of the bombing cessation or limitation."¹ In its main outlines, the American position remained unchanged throughout the negotiations.

Hanoi's reaction was equally simple and stark. It scored the obvious debating point, that it could guarantee useful but not "productive" talks since that depended also

1. New York Times, September 30, 1967

- 32 -

on the United States.¹ But in the main, Hanoi adamantly insisted that the bombing half had to be "unconditional." It rejected all American proposals for reciprocity as put forward for example by Secretary Rusk: respect for the DMZ, no attack on South Vietnamese cities, reduction in the level of military operations.²

Though this deadlock had many causes, surely a central problem was the difficulty each side had in articulating its real concern. Washington feared "trickery;" it believed that once stopped, the bombing would be difficult, if not impossible, to start again even in the face of considerable provocation. Too, it needed some assurance as to how the negotiations would proceed after a bombing halt. Washington was aware that a bombing halt which did not lead rapidly to substantive talks could not be sustained domestically.

1. Interview with Wilfred Burchett, New York Times, October 15, 1967.

2. See Secretary Rusk on Issues & Answers, October 6, 1968.

- 33 -

The legalistic phrasing of these concerns obscured their real merit. If bombing were resumed under conditions of great public indignation, it would be much harder to exercise restraint in the choice of targets and much more difficult to stop again in order to test Hanoi's intentions. The frequently heard advice to "take risks for peace" is therefore right only if one is aware that the consequences of an imprudent risk are likely to be escalation rather than peace.

Hanoi in turn, had a special reason for insisting on an unconditional end of the bombing. A government as subtle as Hanoi must have known that there are no "unconditional" acts in the relation of sovereign states; if only because sovereignty implies the right to reassess changing conditions unilaterally. But Hanoi has always placed great reliance on the pressures of world opinion; the "illegality" of the United States' bombing was therefore a potent political weapon. Reciprocity would jeopardize this claim; it suggested that

- 34 -

United States' bombing might be justified in some circum-
stances. Hanoi did not want a formula under which the
United States could resume bombing "legally" by charging
violations of an understanding. Finally, Hanoi was eager
to give the impression to its supporters in the South that
it had induced us to stop "unconditionally" as a symbol of
imminent victory. For the same reason, it was important
to us that both sides in South Vietnam believed there had
been reciprocity.

As a result, six months were devoted to defining a
quid pro quo which could be represented as unconditional.
The issue of the bombing halt thus raised the question of
the nature of an international commitment. What is the
sanction for violation of an understanding? The United
States, for a long time, conducted itself as if its
principal safeguard was a formal, binding commitment by
Hanoi to certain restraints. In fact, the American sanction
is what the United States can do unilaterally should Hanoi

- 35 -

"take advantage" of the bombing pause. Since no court exists to which the United States could take Hanoi, the protection against trickery is less a formal commitment than Hanoi's fear of the consequences. Communicating what we meant by taking advantage, turned out to be more important than eliciting a formal North Vietnamese response.

The final settlement of the problem seems to have been arrived at by this procedure. In his address announcing the bombing halt, President Johnson stressed that Hanoi is clear about our definition of "take advantage." Hanoi has not formally acknowledged these terms; it has in fact, insisted that the bombing halt was unconditional. But Hanoi can have little doubt that the bombing halt would not survive an escalation of the war in the categories publically stated by Secretary Rusk.

If the negotiations about the bombing halt demonstrate that tacit bargaining may play a crucial role in an ultimate settlement, they also show the extraordinary danger of

- 36 -

neglecting the political framework. Washington had insisted
throughout the negotiations that Saigon participate in the
substantive talks which were to follow a bombing halt.

President Johnson, in his speech announcing the bombing halt,
went so far as to claim that Saigon's participation satisfied the requirement of the San Antonio formula for "productive talks." How we came to insist on a condition which was basically neither in our interest nor Saigon's cannot be determined until the records are available -- if then. It should have been clear that to insist on the participation of Saigon was bound to raise the issues of the status of the NLF and the internal structure of Vietnam -- issues which, as will be seen below, it is in everybody's interest to defer to as late a stage of the negotiations as possible.

Having made Saigon's participation a test case, we
advanced the "your side, our side" formula. Under it, Saigon
and the NLF are to participate in the conference. Each side

- 37 -

can claim that it is composed of two delegations; its opponent is free to insist that it really deals with only one delegation. Thus the United States does not "recognize" the NLF and insist that Hanoi is its negotiating partner; Hanoi can take the opposite view and maintain its refusal to deal formally with Saigon. It is difficult to disentangle from public sources, whether Saigon ever agreed to this formula or whether it understood that our formula amounted to giving the NLF equal status. On the face of it, Saigon's reluctance to accept equal status with the NLF is comprehensible for it tends to affect all other issues from ceasefire to internal structure. The merits of the dispute aside, the public rift between Saigon and Washington, compromised what had been achieved. To split Washington and Saigon has been a constant objective of Hanoi; if the Paris talks turn into an instrument to accomplish this, Hanoi will be tempted to use them for political warfare rather than for serious discussions.

Clearly, there is a point beyond which Saigon cannot be given a veto over negotiations. But equally, it is not

- 38 -

preposterous for Saigon to insist on a major voice over
decisions affecting its own country. And it cannot
strengthen our position in Paris to _begin_ the substantive
discussions with a public _with_ a government whose
constitutional origin we insistently pressed on the world
only two years ago. The impasse -- which will no doubt be
broken sooner or later -- demonstrates that to deal with issues
on an ad hoc basis is too risky; before we go much further in
negotiations, we need an agreed concept of ultimate goals and
how to achieve them.

- 39 -

IV. CEASEFIRE AND COALITION GOVERNMENT

Substantive negotiations confront the United States
with a major conceptual problem: whether to proceed step by
step, discussing each item "on its merits," or whether to
begin by attempting to get agreement about some ultimate
goals.

The difference is not trivial. If the negotiations
proceed step by step through a formal agenda, the danger is
great that the bombing halt will turn out to be an admission
ticket to another deadlock. The issues are so inter-related
that a partial settlement foreshadows the ultimate outcome
and therefore contains all of its complexities. Mutual dis-
trust and the absence of clarity as to final goals combine to
produce an extraordinary incentive to submit all proposals to
the most searching scrutiny and to erect hedges for failure
or bad faith.

This is well illustrated by two schemes which public
debate has identified as suitable topics for the next stage

- 40 -

of negotiations: ceasefire and coalition government.

It has become axiomatic that a bombing halt would lead — almost automatically — to a ceasefire. However, negotiating a ceasefire may well be tantamount to establishing the preconditions of a political settlement.

If there existed a front line with unchallenged control behind them as in Korea, the solution would be traditional and relatively simple: the two sides could stop shooting at each other and the ceasefire line could follow the front line.

But there are no front lines in Vietnam; control is not territorial, it depends on who has focus in a given area and on the time of day. If a cease fire permits the government to move without challenge, day or night, it would define a Saigon victory. If Saigon is prevented from entering certain areas, it would mean in effect the partition of the country which, as in Laos, would tend toward permanency. Unlike Laos, however, the pattern would be crazy quilt with enclaves and islands of differing loyalties all over the country.

- 41 -

This would involve the following additional problems:

(1) it would lead to an intense scramble to establish pre-dominant control before the ceasefire goes into effect;

(2) it would make next to impossible the verification of any withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces that might be negotiated; the local authorities in areas of preponderant Communist control would doubtless certify that no external forces were present and impede any effort at international inspection; (3) it would raise the problem of the applicability of a ceasefire to guerrilla activity in the non-Communist part of the country; in other words, how to deal with the asymmetry between the actions of regular and of guerrilla forces. Regular forces operate on a scale which makes possible a relatively precise definition of what is permitted and what is proscribed; guerrilla forces, by contrast, can be effective through isolated acts of terror difficult to distinguish from normal criminal activity.

- 42 -

There are many other problems in the typical cases of dual control: who collects taxes and how, who enforces the ceasefire and by what means. In other words, a tacit de facto ceasefire may prove more attainable than a negotiated one. By the same token, formal ceasefire is likely to pre-determine the ultimate settlement and tend toward partition.

Ceasefire is thus not so much a step toward a final settlement but a form of it.

This is even more true of another stage of the Vietnam debate: the notion of a coalition government. Of course, there are two meanings to the terms: (a) as a form for legitimizing partition, indeed as a disguise for continuing the civil war, (b) as a "true" coalition government attempting to govern the whole country. In the first case, a coalition government would be a facade with non-Communist and Communist minorities in effect governing their own part of the country.

This is what happened in Laos where each party in the "coalition government" wound up with its own armed forces and its own territorial administration. The central govern-

- 43 -

ment did not exercise any truly national functions. Each
side carried on its own business -- including civil war.
But in Laos, each side controlled contiguous territory, not
a series of enclaves as in South Vietnam. Too, of all the
ways to bring about partition, negotiations about a coalition
government is the most dangerous because the mere partici-
pation of the United States in talking about it could change
the political landscape of South Vietnam.

Coalition government is perhaps the most emotionally
charged issue in Vietnam where it tends to be identified with
the second meaning: of a joint Saigon-NLF administration of
the entire country. There can be no American objection, of
course, to direct negotiations between Saigon and the NLF.
The issue is whether the United States should be party to an
attempt to impose a coalition government. We must be clear
that our involvement in such an effort may well destroy the
existing political structure of South Vietnam and thus lead
to a Communist takeover.

- 44 -

Some urge negotiations on a coalition government for precisely this reason: as a face-saving formula for arranging the Communist political victory which they consider inevitable. But those who believe that the political evolution of South Vietnam should not be foreclosed by an American decision must realize that the subject of a coalition government is the most thankless and tricky area for negotiation by outsiders.

The notion that a coalition government represents a "compromise" which will permit a new political evolution hardly does justice to Vietnamese conditions. To "solve" the problems of Vietnam by means of a coalition government makes as much sense as to attempt to overcome the problems of Mississippi through a coalition between the SDS and Ku Klux Klan. It is beyond imagination that parties that have been murdering and betraying each other for twenty-five years could work together as a team giving joint instructions to the entire country. The image of a line of command extending from Saigon

- 45 -

into the countryside is hardly true of the non-Communist
government in Saigon. It would be absurd in the case of a
coalition government. Such a government would possess no
authority other than that of each minister over the forces
he controls either through personal or party loyalty.

To take just one example of the difficulties:
Communist ministers would be foolhardy in the extreme if they
entered Saigon without bringing along sufficient military
force for their protection. But the introduction of Communist
military forces into the chief faction of governmental strength,
would change the entire political complexion of Vietnam. The
danger of a coalition government is that it would decouple
the non-Communist from effective control over their armed
forces and police, leaving them unable to defend themselves
adequately.

In short, negotiations seeking to impose a coalition
from the outside are likely to change markedly and irreversibly
the political landscape as Vietnamese who believe that

- 46 -

coalition government cannot work quickly choose sides. We
would, in effect, be settling the war over an issue least
amenable to outside influence, with respect to which we
have least grasp of conditions and the long-term implications
of which are most problematical.

This is not to say that the United States should
resist a coalition government if it came about freely through
negotiations between the Vietnamese -- in that case, in fact,
the United States would be in no position to resist. It does
suggest that any negotiation about it by the United States is
likely to lead either to an impasse or to the collapse of
Saigon.

- 47 -

V. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Paradoxical as it may seem, the best way to make progress where distrust is so deep and the issues so inter-related, may be to seek agreement on ultimate goals first and to work back to the details to implement it.

This requires an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. Hanoi's strength is that it is fighting among its own people in familiar territory; while the United States is fighting far away. As long as Hanoi can preserve some political assets in the South, it retains the prospect of an ultimately favorable political outcome. Not surprisingly, Hanoi has shown a superior grasp of the local situation and a greater capacity to design military operations for political ends. Hanoi relies on world opinion; it believes that the unpopularity of the war in Vietnam will ultimately force an American withdrawal. American domestic pressures, for a quick settlement, in particular, belong to Hanoi's main assets.

- 48 -

Hanoi's weaknesses are that superior planning can substitute for material resources only up to a point; beyond it, differences of scale are bound to become significant. A point will inevitably be reached where a continuation of the war will require a degree of foreign assistance which may threaten Hanoi's autonomy. This Hanoi has jealously safeguarded until now. A prolonged, even if ultimately victorious war might leave Vietnam so exhausted as to jeopardize the purpose of decades of struggles.

Moreover, a country as sensitive to international currents as North Vietnam cannot be reassured by recent developments. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia removed Vietnam as the principal concern of world opinion at least for a while. Some countries heretofore critical of the United States remembered their own peril and their need for United States' protection; this served to reduce the intensity of public pressures on America. Hanoi's support of Moscow demonstrated the degree of Hanoi's dependence on the USSR.

- 48 -

It also may have been intended to forestall Soviet pressures on Hanoi to be more flexible by putting Moscow in Hanoi's debt. Whatever the reason, the vision of a Titoist Vietnam suddenly seemed less plausible -- all the more so as Moscow's justification for the invasion of Czechoslovakia can provide a theoretical basis for an eventual Chinese move against North Vietnam. The Soviet doctrine which postulates Moscow's right to intervene to protect Socialist domestic structures made a Sino-Soviet war at least conceivable. For Moscow's accusations against Peking have been, if anything, even sharper than those against Prague. But in case of a Sino-Soviet conflict, Hanoi would be left high and dry. Thus, Hanoi may, for the first time, feel that time is not necessarily on its side.

American assets and liabilities are the reverse of this. No matter how irrelevant some of our political conceptions or how insensitive our strategy, we are so powerful

- 49 -

that Hanoi is simply unable to defeat us militarily. By its
own efforts, Hanoi cannot force the withdrawal of American
forces from South Vietnam. Indeed, a substantial improve-
ment in the American military position seems to have taken
place. As a result, we have achieved our minimum objective:
Hanoi is unable to achieve a military victory. Since it cannot
force our withdrawal, it must negotiate about it. Unfortunately,
our military strength has no political corollary; we have been
unable so far to create political structure that could survive
military opposition from Hanoi if we withdraw.

The structure of the negotiation is thus quite different
from Korea. There are no front lines with secure areas. In
Vietnam, negotiations do not ratify a military status quo but
create a new political reality. There are no unambiguous
tests of relative political and military strength. The
political situation for both sides is precarious -- within
Vietnam for the United States, internationally for Hanoi.
Thus it is probable that neither side can risk a negotiation

- 50 -

so prolonged as that of Panmunjom a decade and a half ago.
In such a situation, a favorable outcome depends on a clear
definition of objectives. The limits of the American
commitment can be expressed in two propositions: (1) the
United States cannot accept a military defeat, or a change
in the political structure of South Vietnam brought about
by external military force; (2) once North Vietnamese forces
and pressures are removed, the United States has no obliga-
tion to maintain a government in Saigon by force.

American objectives should therefore be to (1) bring
about a staged withdrawal of external forces, North Vietnamese
and American, (2) and thereby to bring about a setting which
creates a maximum incentive for the contending forces in
South Vietnam to work out a political agreement. The internal
structure and content of such an agreement, must be left to
the South Vietnamese. It could take place formally on the
national level. More likely, it will occur locally on the
provincial level where even now tacit accommodations are

- 51 -

not unusual in many areas such as the Mekong Delta.

The details of a phased, mutual withdrawal are not
decisive for our present purposes and in any case, would have
to be left to negotiations. It is possible, however, to
list some principles: (1) the withdrawal should be over a
sufficiently long period so that a genuine indigenous
political process has a chance to become established; mutual
withdrawal cannot be treated as a camouflage for a Communist
takeover; (2) the contneding sides in South Vietnam should
commit themselves not to pursue their objectives by force
while the withdrawal of external forces is going on;
(3) insofar as possible, the definition of what constitutes
a suitable political process or structure should be left to
the South Vietnamese with the mutual withdrawal creating
the time frame for an agreement.

This analysis suggests the thrust for American policy
in the next phase: the United States should concentrate on
the subject of the mutual withdrawal of external forces and

- 52 -

avoid negotiating about the internal structure of South Vietnam for as long as possible. The primary responsibility for negotiating the internal structure of South Vietnam should be left for direct negotiations among the South Vietnamese. If we involve ourselves deeply in the issue of South Vietnam's internal arrangements, we will find ourselves in a morass of complexities subject to two major disadvantages: (1) we would be the party in the negotiation least attuned to the subtleties of Vietnamese politics; (2) our pressure may wind up being directed against Saigon as the seeming obstacle to an accommodation. The result may be the complete demoralization of Saigon, profound domestic tensions within the United States and a prolonged stalemate or a resumption of the war.

In such an approach, the negotiating procedure becomes vital; indeed, it may well determine the outcome and the speed with which it is achieved.

- 53 -

Tying the bombing halt to Saigon's participation in the substantive discussions was probably unwise -- although more so as Hanoi seems to have been prepared to continue bilateral talks. The participation of Saigon and the NLF raised issues about status that would have been better deferred; it made a discussion of the internal structure of South Vietnam hard to avoid. Nevertheless, the principles sketched above should still guide our approach to negotiations. It will be more difficult but still possible to implement this approach.

As these lines are being written, the formula for resolving the issue of Saigon's participation in the conference is not yet clear. But the general approach should be the same whatever the eventual compromise. The best procedure would be to establish three forums.

If the South Vietnamese finally appear in Paris, the four-sided conference should be primarily a plenary legitimizing session for two subcommittees: (a) between

- 54 -

Hanoi and the United States, and (b) between Saigon and the NLF. Hanoi and Washington would discuss mutual troop withdrawal and related subjects such as guarantees for the neutrality of Laos and Cambodia. Saigon and the NLF would discuss the internal structure of South Vietnam. The third tier would be an international conference to work out guarantees and safeguards for the agreements arrived at in the other forums, including international peacekeeping machinery.

If Saigon continues to refuse the "our side, your side" formula, the same procedure could be followed. The subcommittees would become principal forums and the four-sided plenary session would be eliminated.

To be sure, Saigon, for understandable reasons, has consistently refused to deal with the NLF as an international entity. But if Saigon understands its own interests, it will see that the procedure outlined here involves a minimum and necessary concession. The three-tiered approach

- 55 -

gives Saigon the greatest possible control over the issues
that affect its own fate; direct negotiations between the
United States and the NLF would be obviated. A sovereign
government is free to talk to any group that represents an
important power base domestically without thereby conferring
sovereignty on it; it happens domestically all the time in
union negotiations.

Buy why should Hanoi accept such an approach? The
answer is that partly, it has no choice; it cannot bring about
a withdrawal of American forces by its own efforts -- particularly
if the United States adopts a less impatient strategy, geared
to the protection of the population and sustainable with sub-
stantially reduced casualties. Hanoi may also believe that
being better organized and more determined, the NLF can win a
political contest. (Of course, the prerequisite of a settle-
ment is that both sides think they have a chance to win or at
least to avoid losing). Above all, Hanoi may not wish to give
the United States a permanent voice in internal South

- 56 -

Vietnamese affairs, as it would if the conference emerging
from the "our side, your side" formula becomes the sole
forum. It may be reinforced in this attitude by the belief
that a prolonged negotiation about coalition government may
end no more satisfactorily from Hanoi's point of view than
the Geneva negotiations over Vietnam in 1954 and Laos in 1962.
As for the United States, if it brings about a removal of
external forces and pressure, and if it gains a reasonable
time for political consolidation, it will have done the
maximum possible for an ally -- short of permanent occupation.

Hanoi cannot be asked to leave the NLF to the mercy of
Saigon. While a coalition government is undesirable, a mixed
commission to develop and supervise a political process to
reintegrate the country -- including free elections -- would
be useful. And there must be an international presence to
enforce good faith. Similarly, we cannot be expected to rely
on Hanoi's word that the removal of its forces from South
Vietnam and pressures is permanent. An international force
would be required to supervise access routes. It should be

- 57 -

reinforced by an electronic barrier to check movements.

A negotiating procedure and a definition of objectives
cannot guarantee a settlement, of course. If Hanoi insists
on total victory, the war must continue. Any other posture
would destroy the chances of a settlement and encourage Hanoi
to wait us out. In that case, we should seek to achieve as
many of our objectives as possible unilaterally. We should
adopt a strategy which is plausible because it reduces casualties.
It should concentrate on the protection of the population
thereby undermining Communist political assets. We should
continue to strengthen the Vietnamese army to permit a gradual
withdrawal of some American forces. Saigon should broaden its
base so that it is stronger for the political contest with the
Communists which sooner or later it must undertake.

No war in a century has aroused the passions of the
conflict in Vietnam. By turning Vietnam into a symbol of
deeper resentments, many groups have defeated the objective
they profess to seek. However we got into Vietnam, whatever

- 58 -

the judgment of our actions, ending the war honorably is
essential for the peace of the world. Any other solution
may unloosen forces that would complicate prospects of
international order. A new administration must be given
the benefit of the doubt and a chance to move toward a peace
which grants the people of Vietnam what they have struggled
so bravely to achieve; an opportunity to work out their own
destiny in their own way.