3. **Nixon's overtures to Saigon**

a. Hitchens attributes the alleged "increases" in Saigon's "demands" to contacts between presidential candidate Richard Nixon and the South Vietnamese Ambassador in Washington, Bui Diem. Hitchens cites as evidence Ambassador Diem's October 27 cable to Saigon, "Many Republican friends have contacted me and encouraged us to stand firm. They were alarmed by press reports to the effect that you had already softened your position,"⁸ and vice presidential candidate Spiro Agnew's November 2 message to Ambassador Diem, "Hold on, we are gonna win."⁹

Fact: Anthony Summers, the author furnishing Hitchens' so-called "'smoking gun' on the 1968 conspiracy,"¹⁰ condemns the Nixon campaign team's overtures to Ambassador Diem as "indefensible," but nonetheless concludes:

> Nixon cannot be held responsible for the collapse of the Johnson peace initiative. President Thieu would very probably have balked at attending the talks anyway, even without the Republican pressure.¹¹

> In the words of South Vietnamese Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, "we had little desire to sit down with the communists at all, and no intention of sitting down with, and thereby recognizing, the National Liberation Front."¹²

In his 1987 memoir, *In the Jaws of History*, Ambassador Diem elaborates:

> As I understood him at the time, Thieu believed the North Vietnamese offer [to attend an expanded round of negotiations in Paris] was nothing but a ploy to influence the presidential race in favor of Humphrey, whom they much preferred to Nixon, with his cold war background. By accepting the American offer, the North Vietnamese were achieving both a bombing halt and this potentially vital ability to affect the election. In return, they were agreeing merely to begin another round of talks, which would be only as substantial as they themselves desired. In other words, it was costing them nothing. Thieu was furious....

> I shared Thieu's concerns fully. I wanted the strictest assurances that the inclusion of the NLF in these talks would not lead eventually to some form of American recognition. I also wanted assurances that the North Vietnamese would enter into direct, substantive talks with us. If they

⁸ Hitchens, p 12.

⁹ Hitchens, p 13.

¹⁰ Hitchens, p 13.

¹¹ Summers, *The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon*, p 306.

¹² Ky, *Twenty Years and Twenty Days*.

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did not, we would remain outsiders, watching as our fate was decided by
others.¹³

4. Kissinger's speculation on the likelihood of a bombing halt

a. Hitchens charges that Kissinger acted as "an informant inside the incumbent administration's camp - a source of hints and tips and early warnings of official intentions."¹⁴ Hitchens argues that Kissinger thus bears full legal responsibility for "every additional casualty, on either side"¹⁵ in Indochina from 1969 to 1973, because these deaths would have been "avoidable"¹⁶ if Kissinger had not expressed to Nixon's campaign manager his belief that a bombing halt was likely.

Fact: In 1968, Kissinger was a Harvard professor. He had no operational role in the Johnson administration. Kissinger had participated once, in 1967, in an unsuccessful peace overture to Hanoi; but even during this time, he had not had any access to classified information or any contact with either of the Vietnamese parties.

In September 1968, Kissinger told Nixon's campaign manager John
Mitchell that he believed "there is [a] better than even chance that Johnson will
order a bombing halt at mid-October."¹⁷ Nixon found this information
"uncomfortably vague."¹⁸ On October 31, Kissinger called one of Nixon's
foreign policy advisors several hours in advance of President Johnson's bombing
halt announcement and said that American negotiators in Paris had "broken
open the champagne." Nixon had already been apprised of developments in
Paris during a phone conversation with President Johnson several days earlier.

The most rigorous analysis of this episode is that undertaken by William
Bundy, President Johnson's Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Paris

¹³ Diem, *In the Jaws of History*, p 239.

¹⁴ Hitchens, p 11.

¹⁵ Hitchens, p 30.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ H.R. Haldeman, relating Kissinger's observations in a memorandum to candidate Nixon. As quoted in *Isaacson, Kissinger*, p 132.

¹⁸ Nixon, RN, pp 324.

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negotiations. In his generally critical volume *A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy During the Nixon Presidency* (one of Hitchens' cited sources), Bundy writes:

> Did Kissinger learn something more concrete about the prospects and convey this to the Nixon people? In 1983 the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh made headlines by leading off his important book *The Price of Power*, which is sharply critical of Kissinger throughout, with the charge that Kissinger got inside information in Paris, conveyed it to the Nixon camp, and followed up repeatedly during October, ingratiating himself with Nixon to secure a high appointment. On a great many other points in his book, I have found Hersh reliable and often original, showing a solid grasp of problems and issues. But in this case, I believe his charge does not stand up under careful examination. There is of course nothing wrong in offering advice and judgment to a candidate in the hope of preferment. In any presidential campaign, many individuals do so. Such action is open to harsh criticism only if it involves the use of inside government information. Yet that is where the charge collapses.

> As of September 18, and until at least the end of the month, not only was the American position unchanged on the terms for a bombing halt and start of negotiations (as it remained throughout), but there was no sign that the North Vietnamese were wavering in their rejection of that position. The most that Kissinger could have picked up was a sense of increased activity and possibly that an effort was being made to engage the Soviet Union. Even if one or more members of a disciplined delegation was ready to confide in a former, there simply was no useful "inside information" at that point.¹⁹

## 5. The Paris peace agreement

a. Hitchens asserts that the Vietnam War "was to end on the same terms and conditions as had been on the table in the fall of 1968."²⁰

*Fact:* Under the "terms and conditions... on the table in the fall of 1968" and articulated by the NLF in its "ten-point peace plan" of November 3, 1968, Washington was required to complete the following tasks as a precondition for substantive negotiations:

* Overthrow the South Vietnamese government;

* Dismantle all American military installations in South Vietnam;

* Withdraw immediately, unilaterally, and unconditionally from Indochina;

* Pay war reparations to Hanoi.

Once these tasks were complete, Hanoi indicated that negotiations over the release of American prisoners of war "may start."

¹⁹ Bundy, *The Tangled Web*, p 40.

²⁰ Hitchens, p 15.

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In contrast, the January 1973 "Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet-Nam" included for the first time the following terms:

* The release of all American prisoners of war;

* The continued existence of the allied South Vietnamese government, army, and police force;

* Prohibition of North Vietnamese infiltration into South Vietnam;

* Continued American military and economic aid to Saigon;

* Recognition of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Vietnam;

* Withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops from Laos and Cambodia.

While not indicative of a clear-cut American victory, these terms were distinct from the total collapse that had been "on offer" in 1968.

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# The "Pennsylvania" Initiative and American Aerial Strikes Against the Long Bien/ Paul Doumer Bridge

Drafted 10/06/03 by Sky Schouten

## Background:

In 1967 the United States government made several overtures to Hanoi through private channels. The aim of these overtures was to persuade North Vietnam to enter into substantive peace negotiations by holding out the prospect of a cessation of American bombing.

In January, a US government representative approached North Vietnam's representative in Moscow to present these terms. In February and April, President Johnson sent personal letters to North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh. In July, the United States government enlisted the help of two French private citizens to convey the offer personally to high officials in Hanoi.

Hanoi responded negatively to each of these overtures.

## 1. The nature of Kissinger's involvement

a. Hitchens asserts that Kissinger "went so far as to involve himself in an initiative that extended to direct personal contact with Hanoi."²¹ Hitchens calls this development "surreal"²² and implies that it was illegal.

*Fact:* In June 1967, Kissinger attended an academic conference in Paris. There he met Herbert Marcovich, a French biochemist working for the World Health Organization. Marcovich mentioned that Ho Chi Minh had during the 1940s lived in the Paris home of Marcovich's friend Raymond Aubrac. Marcovich now suggested that, since he and Aubrac were on good terms with the North Vietnamese leadership, they would be willing to serve as intermediaries between Washington and Hanoi.

Upon his return to the United States, Kissinger reported this development to Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Rusk approved a plan, code-

²¹ Hitchens, p 19.

²² Ibid.

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