- 2 -

[YD]

I. THE SITUATION WITHIN SOUTH VIETNAM

Prime Negotiator

Any discussion of the negotiations in Paris must begin
with a brief analysis of the situation in South Vietnam. For
diplomacy can only reflect the situation on the ground.

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 was under government control and
the figure was expected to rise. A week later, the Tet offensive

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overthrew the assumptions of American strategy.

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

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 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 the 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

[y]

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political importance.

Thus the strategy of attrition was in difficulty even with respect to the North Vietnamese main forces. Since Hanoi made no attempt to hold any territory, it proved difficult to make the North Vietnamese fight except at places which they chose, especially since the terrain in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, especially the North, was cloaked in movements. In the event of a considerable majority of engagements came to be initiated by our opponent, which enabled him to regulate his casualties at least within certain limits. This made the so-called "kill-ratios" highly unreliable indicators of progress. They were falsified further by another asymmetry: the level of what was "unacceptable" to Americans fighting thousands of miles from home turned out to be much lower than that of Hanoi fighting in what it considered its own country.

All this caused our military operations to have little effect on the enemy's progress in osvatilin, a political ban was implemented, and so did our diplomacy relationship to our declared political objectives. 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.

~~slaked off~~ total victory

But our military deployment to be politically ~~effective~~,
required total victory; it was not well designed to support
a negotiation ~~short of surrender by the opponent.~~ For purposes
of negotiations, we would have been better off with 100 percent
control over sixty percent of the country (to give us an
~~unambiguous~~ bargaining counter), than with sixty percent
control of 100 percent of the country.

In these circumstances, our non-military program could
have little impact. And it suffered from conceptual diffi-
culties of its own. The so-called pacification program was
based on two propositions: (a) that governmental stability
depended on popular support and (b) that popular support could
be won by raising the level of economic activity in the country-
side. These assumptions were dubious on several grounds: In
Vietnam, governments tend to be popular because they are strong,

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[y]

1. not the other way around. The weak popular base of the government reflected in large part its own internal divisions, which in turn were relatively independent of economic conditions in the countryside. Secondly, the root causes of governmental instability in Vietnam are not economic. They have to do with the transition from a mandarin to a modern society; they reflect the tensions which arise when a polity based on personal loyalties seeks to develop a sense of institutional legitimacy. Economic programs produced stability in Europe because existing institutions were threatened above all by the gap between expectations and reality. In Vietnam -- as in most developing countries -- the overwhelming issue is not to buttress but to develop a political framework. Indeed, economic programs may undermine the economic progress is likely to undermine whatever political existing pattern of obligation raises the need structure exists. (This is no argument against economic programs, only against postulating an automatic relationship

1. For a splendid discussion of this problem, see Frances Fitzgerald, "The Struggle and the War: The Maze of Vietnamese Politics" *Atlantic Monthly*, August 1967

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[Y]

between economic progress and political stability).

Indeed, the political power of the Viet Cong where it does not derive from terror, is due to the ability to develop home-work. NOIP a notion of political legitimacy. 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 of the world, owe many of their successes to their ability to supply an answer to the question of the nature and foundation of political authority. ↑

*(As if as the North Vietnamese say, *structural unreasonings*!)*

The Tet offensive brought the compounded weaknesses 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 hurt by American forces. But in a guerrilla war purely military considerations are not the same time, the war has always turned at least as much on psychological as on military factors. On the psychological and political factor, even as true.

*(Insert yellow card)*

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be repeated to be politically effective: 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 countryside even in the daytime, served to strengthen this trend.

For all these reasons, the Tet offensive marked the watershed of the American effort, it meant that existing programs had run out of time. No matter how effective our actions henceforth, the prevalent strategy could no longer Corvus with force levels politically achieve its objectives in a period acceptable to the American people. This 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 concentrated

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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. This set
the stage for President Johnson's speech of March 31, which
ushered in the current negotiations.

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## II. THE ENVIRONMENT OF NEGOTIATIONS

Of course, the popular picture that negotiations began in May is only partially correct. Ever since the American commitment in Vietnam began to escalate, the United States and Hanoi have rarely been out of touch. 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 agreement on some general principles. These include
that the Geneva accords could form the basis of a settlement,
that the United States forces would ultimately be withdrawn,
that the reunification of Vietnam should come about through
direct negotiation between the Vietnamese, that (after a

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

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 [illegible] meaning of those
propositions which sound alike 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, acceptance of the Geneva agreements, including 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 it has agreed to consider the NLF program among others.

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1. many books and articles. 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. Good will 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 overestimate the freedom of maneuver of the other has almost certainly compounded distrust. It has caused Hanoi to appear to Washington perversely obstinate and Washington to seem to Hanoi ostentatiously devious.

Both Hanoi and the United States are limited in their freedom of action by their assessment of the state of mind of their supporters in the South. They realize that the state of mind of the population of South Vietnam will determine the

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

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within the Communist world. Hanoi's margin of survival is so narrow that precise calculation has become a way of life; caution is almost an obsession. 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 tend to cancel each other out.

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 -- at least in its eyes -- to find out our 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

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in the world communist parties: it would need to support the
Chinese argument that intransigence toward the United States
is, if not relatively without risk, at least manageable.
But a defeat of Hanoi would weaken a potential barrier to
Chinese influence in South East Asia, and enable Peking to
turn its full fury on Moscow. It would demonstrate Soviet
inability to protect "fraternal" Communist countries against
the United States. For a long time, Moscow has seemed paralyzed
by conflicting considerations and bureaucratic inertia.

Events in Czechoslovakia have reduced Moscow's use-
fulness 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 it could be blamed by our allies on a
quid pro quo for Soviet assistance in extricating us from South
East Asia.

["- 25 -", "structurally hostile and by Hanoi's experience in previous negotiations with the 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). These methods cause Hanoi's diplomacy to operate in phases of reconnaissance and withdrawal and to give and 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 "abortive" contacts with Hanoi probably served the function of defining the terrain. Thus, the methods of Hanoi's diplomacy are not very different from Viet Cong military strategy, and seem sometimes past as impuretable to us."]

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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 easily reveals itself amenable 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 can be scheduled, two American groups in the 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 of the

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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. Washington insisted on legal formulae. (Hanoi communicated with us through subtle changes of tense.) Washington was unequipped for this mode of communication. In a press conference in February, 1968, President Johnson said: "As near as I am able to detect, Hanoi has not changed its course of 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."

It may have meant nothing legally. But a different kind of analysis might have inquired why Hanoi would open up a channel for a meaningless communication. It would have been useful to assess the purposes of a government whose record of careful planning made it extremely unlikely that a change of tense would be inadvertent.

1. New York Times, February 17, 1968

[Y]

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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 the nature of "commitment" or the meaning of "trickery." This impasse lay at the heart of the recently broken impasse over the bombing halt.

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### 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. Part of the deadlock was no doubt caused by the difficulty of encompassing intangibles of style, concern and purpose into formal negotiating positions.

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 October, 1967: "The United States is willing to stop all aerial and naval bombardment of North Vietnam when this will lead to productive discussions. We, of course, assume that while discussions proceed, North Vietnam would not take advantage of the bombing cessation or limitation." 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

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not "productive" talks since that depended also on the
United States. 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.

This deadlock had many causes, but the difficulty of
leading each side to articulate its real concern, surely was central.
Washington feared "trickery;" it believed that once stopped,
the bombing would be difficult, if not impossible, to start
up again even in the face of considerable provocation. 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 though it tended to phrase
wilfred burkett n. Y. T. early Oct 15, 67 Salty

See Secretary Rusk on Issues & Answers, Oct. 6, 1968.

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its concerns more legalistically.

Hanoi in turn, had a special reason for insisting on an unconditional end of the bombing. On the face of it, it is subtle enough to know that there are no "unconditional" acts in the relation of sovereign states; if only because sovereignty implies the right to reassess changing conditions, inclinally. 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 United States' bombing might be justified in some circumstances. Hanoi did not want to give the United States a pretext under which by charging violations of the understanding, bombing could be resumed "legally." Finally Hanoi was eager to give the impression that its support in South Vietnam had included us in a stop "unconditionally" to

As a result, six months were devoted on defining a quid pro quo which could be represented as unconditional. This tricky problem was further complicated by the United States' insistence on some formal, binding assurance. This raised the

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[Y]

question of the nature of an international commitment. What is
the sanction for violation of an understanding? No court of
appeal exists. Obviously, the principal United States'

sanction is what the United States can do unilaterally should

Since no court of law exists to which the US could take Hanoi,
Hanoi "take advantage" of the bombing pause. The protection
against a trick is less a formal commitment than Hanoi's fear
of the consequences, of such an act. Communicating what we under-
stood 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. We appear to have satisfied our-
selves that Hanoi is clear about our definition of "take
advantage" repeated by President Johnson in his address
announcing the bombing halt. 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

1. New York Times November 1, 1968

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only complicate negotiations; it tempts Hanoi to use the Paris talks as an instrument of political warfare rather than for serious bargaining. Clearly, Saigon cannot be given an absolute veto, though it unavoidably will have a major voice in decisions affecting its own country. But this is not the choice before us. The imbroglio over the bombing halt makes clear that to handle negotiating primarily from the point of view of bargaining technique is too risky; needed above all is an agreed concept of ultimate goals and how to achieve them.

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## IV. CEASEFIRE AND COALITION GOVERNMENT

Now that the bombing halt has been arranged, the United States faces 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 interrelated that a partial settlement in most areas fore-shadows the ultimate outcome and therefore contains all of its complexities. Mutual distrust 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

[y]

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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 on either side as in Korea, the solution would be traditional, that is, to stop shooting at each other and let the two sides could stop shooting at each other and relatively simple. But there are no front lines in Vietnam; control is not territorial, it depends 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, Saigon would be dropped into fires, it would mean in effect the partition of the country, until, in the mean time, North Vietnam would be permanently劃 as a独立的国家, while South Vietnam would remain the same.

This would involve the following additional problems:

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

(2) it would make next to impossible the verification of any

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[y]

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.

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 negotiations for a ceasefire
is likely to be formal, and thus would, in effect, predetermine the ultimate settlement. They
would be final, and binding towards partition. This is not an
unacceptable proposal.

clear
of page

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The notion that a coalition government represents a
"compromise" which will permit a new political evolution
hardly does justice to Vietnamese conditions.

Theoretically, of course, it is possible to conceive
of a coalition government in which each party can protect
its own interests but is unable to impose its will on its
opponent. But such a solution is extraordinarily improbable.

Indeed, 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 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

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problematical.

This is not to say that the United States should resist a coalition government if it came about/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.

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V. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Paradoxically as it may seem, Paradoxically where distrust is so deep and the issues so interrelated, the best way to make progress may be to agree first on an ultimate goal, and to work back from this 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 its own country; 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 too on world opinion; it believes that the unpopularity of the war in Vietnam in many parts of the world will ultimately force an American withdrawal. American domestic purposes in particular, but largely Hanoi's main assets

Hanoi's weaknesses are that superior planning can

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[Y]

Hanoi's support of Moscow was clearly against American interests.

assistance were less prepared to jeopardize it for South

because it prevented the theoretical justification for an eventual

East Asian issues. (The vision of a Titoist Vietnam suddenly seemed more against the return of Hanoi's dependence on the USSR.)

was less appealing -- all the more so as Hanoi's support of
seemed plausible -- all the more so as Moscow's
justification for the invasion of Yugoslavia

Moscow -- explicable by Hanoi's dependence -- laid the

can provide a new eventual

theoretical basis for an ultimate Chinese move against North

Tito's sand

which postulates

Vietnam. Finally, the new Soviet doctrine of the right to
Ponev's rights

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 that Hanoi

is simply unable to defeat us. By its own efforts, Hanoi
militarily,

cannot force the withdrawal of American forces from South
Vietnam. Indeed, all indicators point to a substantial

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Whether or not President Thieu reconsiders the best procedure way out would be a three-tiered approach. If the South Vietnamese finally appear in Paris, the big conference should be primarily a plenary legitimizing session for two subconferences: (a) between Hanoi and the United States, and (b) between Saigon and the NLF. If Saigon should continue obdurate, there should be an international conference on the model style of the Geneva conference confined to working out guarantees for the other two agreements. 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 would work out guarantees and safeguards for the agreements arrived at in the other forums, including international peacekeeping machinery.

To be sure, Saigon, for understandable reasons, has consistently refused to deal with the NLF as an equal, international entity. But if Saigon understands its own interests, it will see that the procedure outlined here involves

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[y]

a minimum and necessary concession. The three-tiered approach
gives Saigon ~~a maximum of~~ possible ~~power and~~ 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. Even
~~if Saigon should refuse such an approach on the national level~~,
it may well be attempted on the local level.

But 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 ~~minimum casualties.~~
sustainable with substantially reduced

Hanoi may also believe that being better organized and more
determined, the NLF can win a political contest. (Of course,
the prerequisite of a settlement is that both sides think they
have a chance to win ~~but neither side is assured ot it.)~~ Above
all, Hanoi may not wish to give the United States a permanent
~~battlegame~~ are not necessary on both sides.

- 52 -

voice in internal South Vietnamese affairs. 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.

To be sure, 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 ally on this page.

To be sure, a negotiating procedure and a definition of objectives cannot guarantee a settlement. If the other side insists on total victory, the war must continue. Any other posture would destroy the chances of a settlement. In that case, we and our friends Hanoi will do our best.

- 53 -

should seek to realize unilaterally as many of the objectives
of the negotiations as possible. We should adopt a strategy
which is plausible because it reduces casualties. It should
concentrate on the protection of the population thereby under-
mining 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.

It should seek to negotiate local arrangements to remove
the internal affairs of South Vietnam from international forums
insofar as this is possible. 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 the judgment of our actions, ending the war honorably
is essential for the peace of the world. Any other solution may
be in nobody's interest to unloosen forces that would complicate
international order. The people of Vietnam have suffered enough

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[x]

not to have to prolong their agony by being made the test case
for frustrations far away and little connected with local
issues. A new Administration must be given the benefit of
the doubt and a chance to move toward an objective which is
finally in everybody's interest: a peace of reconciliation
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.