THE VERY FIRST STEP
IT was just after 1 a.m. when the phone shrilled at Lyndon Johnson's White House bedside. Drowsily the President lifted the receiver. An instant later, he was wide awake. At the other end of the line was National Security Adviser Walt W. Rostow with the news that Hanoi was at last prepared to end the month-long dispute over a site for talks on the Viet Nam war. By way of the diplomatic "mail drop" that the U.S. and North Viet Nam have been using in the Laotian capital of Vientiane, Hanoi notified Washington that it would send representatives to Paris, probably by this Friday, to get the long-delayed negotiations under way.
The break came at a point when Johnson and many of his countrymen had begun to despair that talks would ever get started. After the President's March 31 speech announcing a curtailment in the bombing of North Viet Nam--and his even more dramatic decision not to seek a second term--the U.S. officially proposed 15 sites* for talks, unofficially offered Hanoi a considerably longer shopping list. Hanoi rejected them all, steadfastly insisted that the U.S. choose between two venues that would be physically and psychologically unsuitable--the Cambodian capital of Pnompenh, where neither Washington nor its Saigon ally has an embassy, and Warsaw, capital of a major North Vietnamese ally and armorer.
Nonetheless, as the weeks wore on without results, it was Johnson--not Ho Chi Minh--who came under increasing criticism. From members of L.B.J.'s own party and foreign governments came mounting pressure for him to give in and take what Hanoi proffered, however unpalatable. Said New York's Senator Robert Kennedy while campaigning in Indiana for Johnson's job: "We need not worry about whether we will lose face by agreeing to a site we have not suggested. The important thing is to get the talks started. Each week of delay costs the lives of hundreds of men and further postpones our own hopes for domestic progress."
Self-imposed Defeat. Johnson stuck it out, and in the end got a better deal. His offer of an unconditional, if partial, bombing pause, backed up by his renunciation of a second term, was an astonishingly risky move for a notoriously cautious operator. Having gambled so much, the President was not interested in showcase talks that would impress the world but accomplish little. Consequently, he considered it important not merely that the talks should get started, but also that they should get started in the proper way, without allowing the U.S. to labor under the considerable disadvantage of negotiating in an unfriendly climate.
Johnson had another grave concern.
In the wake of the Communists' Tet offensive against South Viet Nam's cities, some officials in Hanoi seemed convinced that they had both Saigon and Washington on the run. Once talks got started, they were unlikely to be in the mood even to consider concessions. Actually, both U.S. and South Vietnamese officials were increasingly coming around to the view that Tet, in the long run, had proved to be a disaster to the Communists, costing them 42,000 men, by U.S. estimate, rallying many South Vietnamese to fresh efforts, and resulting in "no enemy flags in our cities," as Constituent Assemblyman Dr. Phan Quang Dan said last week during a U.S. tour. Similarly, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson maintained that the U.S. "suffered a smashing, catastrophic psychological defeat" as a result of Tet--but only because it was "a defeat which we imposed on ourselves."
Militarily, the post-Tet situation looked highly encouraging for the allies last week. South Viet Nam's army was steadily expanding toward a better equipped, better-trained force of 918,000. In the field, U.S. and South Vietnamese troops scored a series of notable victories against Communist units in the outskirts of Saigon and even more decisively in the A Shau Valley (see THE WORLD). While U.S. losses were running at the rate of some 30 dead per day, the Communists were losing about 500.
Tantrums & Tirades. The phone call from Rostow proved to Johnson that he had judged the situation correctly. Nine hours after North Viet Nam's proposal reached Washington, the President appeared before a previously scheduled news conference--the first full-dress, televised session he had held in four months--and announced: "I have sent a message informing Hanoi that the date of May 10 and the site of Paris are acceptable to the U.S." He added somberly: "I must, however, sound a cautionary note. This is only the very first step. There are many, many hazards and difficult days ahead."
That was no exaggeration. For one thing, it is unclear whether Hanoi regards the forthcoming meeting as a propaganda ploy, a purely procedural preliminary to wider talks--or something more. In the past, the North Vietnamese have insisted that this round of parleys be held to resolve one issue and one issue only: whether the U.S. intends to call a complete, unconditional halt to its bombing of the North. Only after Washington agrees to do so, Hanoi has persistently maintained, will it then go on to formal negotiations with a full agenda. But in its note to Washington last week, Hanoi significantly altered its wording; now, it said, it "is of the view that the formal talks should be held immediately." Possibly, Ho now intends to telescope the talks.
Even so, if Communist negotiators are true to form, the weeks and months to come will bring well-rehearsed tantrums and tirades, dramatic walkouts and magnanimous walkins, endless impasses and--perhaps--sudden breakthroughs. The upshot could be a hopeless deadlock that would almost surely lead to a wider, more savage war. Or it could be a gradual phase-down in the fighting and, ultimately, peace.
Traveling Light. For the U.S., the chief negotiator in what is likely to prove a harrowing test of endurance, patience and skill will be Roving Ambassador Averell Harriman, who at 76 boasts not only a long record of suecessful negotiations with Communist diplomats but astonishing stamina as well. Backing up Harriman will be Cyrus R. Vance, 51, until last year the Deputy Secretary of Defense. As its chief representative, Hanoi designated Xuan Thuy, 55, a veteran diplomat and journalist who retired as Foreign Minister three years ago. Supporting him will probably be Mai Van Bo, 50, the pudgy, polished former teacher who since 1961 has skillfully represented Hanoi's interests in Paris.
If Harriman has his way--and he quite often does--the U.S. will be traveling uncharacteristically light. During the Laos negotiations six years ago, the U.S. had a 126-man team. Harriman quickly decided that he wanted as his deputy a junior Foreign Service officer named William H. Sullivan, now the U.S. Ambassador to Laos and the chief go-between with the North Vietnamese in Vientiane. Impossible, snorted the State Department; Sullivan was outranked by whole battalions of bureaucrats. "I know," retorted Harriman. "I'm sending them home." Result: the cumbersome U.S. delegation was cut by two-thirds, and Harriman had Sullivan as his second-in-command.
Venerable Bivouac. For the Paris parley, Harriman and Vance will be accompanied by three principal aides: Philip Habib, Lebanese-descended Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs; William Jordan, former newsman and Viet Nam specialist for the National Security Council staff; and Lieut. General Andrew Goodpaster, Dwight Eisenhower's onetime military aide who was recently designated General Creighton Abrams' deputy in Viet Nam. The huge, 164-member U.S. Embassy in Paris will provide manpower and logistical support for the delegates, most of whom are likely to bivouac just across the street from the embassy at the venerable Hotel Crillon. Harriman and Vance may use the now-vacant ambassador's residence, although Ambassador-Designate Sargent Shriver very much wants to get to Paris in time for the big show. He may be thwarted, however, by the fact that Charles de Gaulle is scheduled to visit Rumania next week, and the State Department wants Shriver to await his return before assuming his diplomatic post.
The French suggested four or five sites for the talks, including the old Hotel Majestic, which served as the Gestapo's Paris headquarters during World War II. More likely--and more remote--is either the Chateau de Champs on the Marne River or the Chateau de La Celle-Saint-Cloud, both set in wooded parks outside Paris.
Long-Drawn Ordeal. Even an idyllic setting, one of the balmiest Paris springtimes in memory, and France's justly famed cuisine may do little to palliate what--judging from the seemingly interminable preliminaries--is likely to be a depressing, long-drawn ordeal.
Johnson got the ball rolling with his
March 31 announcement of a significant reduction in the bombing of the North "in the hope that this action will lead to early talks." Three days later, Hanoi said it was ready to send representatives to talk to the U.S. about "the unconditional cessation of the U.S. bombing raids and all other acts of war against the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam so that talks may start." Then began the month of sparring over a site.
To break the deadlock, Indonesia's Foreign Minister Adam Malik suggested that the talks be held on one of his country's ships in neutral waters. Malik recalled Johnson's remark last fall that "a neutral ship on a neutral sea would be as good a meeting place as any." He also recalled that negotiations aboard a U.S. Navy transport led to Indonesia's independence in 1949.
The foremost possibility was Indonesia's biggest vessel, the dilapidated, Soviet-built cruiser Irian, once referred to by wags as "Sukarno's floating cocktail lounge." Washington accepted the proposal last week. Hanoi rejected it on the ground that Indonesia, which thwarted a Communist takeover 2 1/2 years ago, is "not neutral." Chuckled one British official: "Why don't we try to get the North Koreans to offer the Pueblo?"
Rising Pressures. Impatience mounted. In Washington, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman J. William Fulbright and members of his committee urged Johnson to accept Warsaw and "not quibble about a site." The British grumbled about U.S. "fussing." Johnson clung to his insistence that a site should satisfy four requirements--adequate communications, access for U.S. allies, thorough press coverage, and a "fair" atmosphere for both sides.
The pressure was beginning to build from another direction as well, with some military men urging that the bombing be resumed throughout the North. But many top Navy and Air Force officials, in particular, felt that the U.S. was destroying more enemy supplies by concentrating its bombing on supply routes from the Demilitarized Zone at the 17th parallel to the 19th parallel rather than by trying to bombard the entire North. Indeed, the U.S. flew nearly 700 more missions in April over the 21% of North Viet Nam's territory that is not yet proscribed than it did in March, when most of the country was fair game.
Autumn Leaves. Taking note of the growing disquiet, newly appointed United Nations Ambassador George Ball warned in a tough speech that it would be "a mistake to expect that anything can be gained by unilateral concessions, or that a show of weakness will make a negotiation go more swiftly, or even go at all." Addressing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Ball declared: "I find it both stupid and unattractive when a handful of our countrymen, who have read little history or have not understood what they have read, engage in public self-flagellation, declaring in sanctimonious tones that American policy is thoroughly in the wrong and that we as a nation are as brutal and viciously ambitious as the other side." The U.S., he said, could ill afford to "lead from weakness or out of a sense of discouragement or despair."
Nonetheless, even Lyndon Johnson was beginning to feel that peace talks would not materialize. Hanoi sounded totally intransigent. Its leaders were under intense pressure from Peking to avoid talks. Allied intelligence reports noted that its forces in the South were girding for a new smash at Saigon and other cities. Moreover, Hanoi's hawk faction saw the recent wave of resignations from the Administration, Johnson's own decision not to run, the racial crisis and the dollar's instability as proof that Washington was in des perate straits. When U.N. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg quit--on the heels of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Health Education and Welfare Secretary John Gardner and Postmaster General Larry O'Brien, among others--Hanoi's official newspaper Nhan Dan described him as one of a long line of officials who "have jumped out of a boat that is steadily sinking." Said the daily: "In a declining regime, men of talent are like autumn leaves "
Bathroom Draft. Though Johnson put no time limit on his bombing curtailment, he was swiftly nearing a decision to resume full-scale air attacks. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the clouds parted. In Vientiane, where U.S. and North Vietnamese diplomats had been in contact about a dozen times to exchange notes, Ambassador Sullivan received a message from Hanoi's charge d'affaires Nguyen Chan in the middle of the morning. Would Sullivan please come over? He had met face-to-face with Chan twice since the beginning of April, chatting with him in fluent French (Sullivan also speaks Italian and Dutch) over cups of tea.
Once again, Sullivan, a Rhode Islander who has spent 21 of his 45 years in the Foreign Service, sped to North Viet Nam's embassy. This time, he remained just long enough to pick up the latest note--Hanoi had dispatched it on the eve of its celebrations of Buddha's birthday--and dash back to his cable room to send a top-priority message to Washington. Three-quarters of the way through the typically polemic prose, Sullivan had spotted the paragraph that showed the Communists were at last ready to talk.
After getting Sullivan's report, John son phoned Dean Rusk for a lengthy talk before returning to bed. Rising at 6 a.m., the President began writing out a rough statement for his midmorning press conference, working in a bathroom with the door closed so as not to waken Lady Bird. Johnson discussed the draft with his top officials, and in a hallway, ten minutes before he entered the East Room for the 125th press conference of his presidency, he gave the order to send Hanoi an acceptance on the Paris site.
Though in private conversation Johnson had spoken disparagingly of Paris, he was only slightly worried about it. He would have preferred Geneva, which is sympathetic to the U.S., while Paris, with the biggest Vietnamese colony outside of Southeast Asia and no fewer than 150 Vietnamese restaurants, is definitely pro-Hanoi. In an early draft of his statement on the talks, Johnson betrayed some apprehension about how the French would act when he said that he hoped they would grant equal treatment to all parties. The final draft described France as a country "where all parties should expect such treatment." Despite Johnson's mild concern, however, the choice of Paris over Warsaw was a vindication of his insistence on a compatible site.
Never in Doubt? Inasmuch as Washington and Hanoi had done nothing more than select a place to talk about talks, the reaction was disproportionately euphoric. On Wall Street, the Dow-Jones industrial average spurted 11.91 points before receding during an 18 million-share day. In Washington, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield cried: "Excellent, excellent! The ice jam has been broken." "This is the best news I have heard for a long time," said U.N. Secretary-General U Thant.
Among the French, joy was unalloyed--except by smugness. "Was it ever in doubt?" murmured Premier Georges Pompidou during a visit to Teheran. "This is the result of the clairvoyant action of President de Gaulle with regard to the Viet Nam War," exulted long-time De Gaulle Critic Valery Giscard d'Estaing. Some French officials saw the parley as an opportunity for le grand Charles to establish himself as an outsize hyphen between East and West and a buffer between Hanoi and the U.S. Others spoke of Paris' long history as a site for crucial talks--perhaps overlooking such notable failures as the 1946 talks with Vietnamese nationalists that led directly to the French-Indochinese war and the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I and, in the view of some historians, paved the way for World War II.
U.S. officials were less than ecstatic, largely because of Parisians' voluble anti-Americanism, part of it engendered by the French Communist Party, Europe's second largest, and part by De Gaulle and his state-owned radio-television network. Nonetheless, there was not much real fear of disorderly protests. "The French are awfully good at maintaining order when they want to," said a U.S. official, "and we think they'll want to." The capital's riot cops--the Algeria-honed Compagnie Republicaine de Securite--are among the best anywhere. Moreover, the Quai d'Orsay's chief Asia expert, Etienne Manac'h, is both reliable and impartial in his dealings with foreign diplomats.
What Is Normal? Precisely why Hanoi has decided to talk at this juncture mystifies U.S. experts. "Is it because they are doing very well in the South?" asked one official. "Because they are doing poorly in the South? Because the Chinese are now under control? Because they haven't got the Chinese under control? Let's admit we don't know what's going on." He added: "It may even be that they want peace."
Whatever course the talks ultimately take, the opening scenarios are fairly predictable. The Communists will demand a total cessation of U.S. air strikes and all other acts of war against the North (presumably including naval bombardments and artillery shells lobbed across the Demilitarized Zone) before they will consent to talk about "other matters." In its turn, the U.S. will insist on a quid pro quo under the San Antonio formula that Johnson enunciated last September. As Defense Secretary Clark Clifford defined it, the prescription calls for the U.S. to stop the bombing if North Viet Nam indicates that it will continue "to transport the normal amount of goods, munitions and men to South Viet Nam" and no more.
But what is normal? Last week Clifford said he was "not aware of any increase in infiltration" since Johnson's March 31 order to curtail the bombing. But Dean Rusk, testifying on the foreign-aid bill before a House committee, said infiltration had increased. Indeed, some intelligence sources claim that 30,000 infiltrators poured into the South in April alone--a 2 1/2-fold increase over the normal rate--and that their weapons were new, excellent and plentiful.
Anxious Allies. The inevitable squabble over quids and quos could take weeks or months, depending on Hanoi's mood. If the Communists are indeed convinced that they have brought the U.S. to its knees, the talks could dissolve over that initial issue, for Johnson is determined not to end the air raids without some concession, even a modest one, from Hanoi. And the U.S. can argue that Hanoi already enjoys by far the better of the bargain. While 79% of the North is now free of bombing, Rusk noted last week, "not one square mile in South Viet Nam has any assurance of immunity from attacks by the Viet Cong."
If the parleys do not collapse in the early stages, the next thorny point is likely to be a demand by Hanoi that the National Liberation Front be admitted to the talks. The U.S will counter with a demand for full representation of the Saigon government. That could take more weeks and months--particularly since the N.L.F. denies the legitimacy of the government of South Viet Nam's President Nguyen Van Thieu, and Thieu vows that he will not sit down with the insurgents.
Both sides are certain to come under increasing pressure from their allies if the sessions seem to be making any headway. Moscow has remained silent through the pre-talk phase, but many Washington officials are convinced that the Russians would be delighted to see the war end--and with it, the heavy burden of aid to Hanoi. Peking is another story; it can be counted on to urge Hanoi not to come to terms.
The U.S. has similar concerns. Notes Stanford Historian Claude Buss: "Australians, New Zealanders, Koreans, Filipinos and Thais with their forces in Viet Nam are not going to sit aside while we make peace. They will have positive ideas, and they will insist on more security guarantees than we would. They are going to be a lot stickier at a peace conference than we are."
Jean & Jack. Most serious of the U.S. worries is the reaction of the Saigon government. Already, fears of a U.S. withdrawal have produced symptoms of a virulent anti-Americanism. Both Thieu and his flamboyant Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky last week swore they would "never" have anything to do with a coalition government that included the Viet Cong. Ky was particularly upset by U.S. criticism of the performance of the South's government and army. Speaking in Dalat, he lashed out at "those colonialists who think that by giving us a small quantity of material support that they can slander us. No one, be he named
Jean or Jack, can insult our people and call them cowardly." If the talks reach a second stage, Ky is scheduled to head the South's delegation--which can hardly be a comforting thought to the U.S. For the time being, Saigon will send as many as 20 "observers."
The U.S., of course, is no more anxious than Thieu and Ky to accept a coalition that would swallow non-Communist elements. Speaking on CBS-TV's Face the Nation last week, William Bundy warned that an "imposed coalition" giving the Viet Cong key Cabinet posts "would be likely to follow the East European pattern of the simple takeover." He predicted that even with the V.C.'s relatively small popular following--he placed it at 15% to 25%--such a takeover would be almost inevitable. In many rural areas, the guerrilla is treated with great deference--or fear--and many peasants refer to him respectfully as ong bac ("Mr. Uncle").
Nevertheless, some form of recognition of the N.L.F. will have to be granted if the talks are to succeed. One possible formula: the "Greek solution," under which the Communists--as in Greece after the end of its civil war in 1949--would be allowed to operate as a legal party, after laying down their arms and renouncing terrorism, but would initially be denied Cabinet-level representation.
Ratifying Reality. Both sides will be negotiating with the Geneva Conference of 1954 clearly in mind. The Communists still feel that they were cheated by the final agreement. They entered the talks with hopes of winning effective control over Laos and Cambodia and of achieving a partition of
Viet Nam that would give them everything above the 16th parallel. They emerged without Cambodia and Laos (though a number of Viet Minh divisions are still trying to correct that omission) and with a partition line at the 17th parallel, leaving the old imperial capital of Hue in the South. As for the U.S., it never signed the main agreement, largely because it was convinced that the Viet Nam-wide elections scheduled for 1956 would not be effectively supervised and would guarantee a Communist takeover of the South.
The maximum U.S. goal now is withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops, a renunciation of subversive tactics by the guerrillas, and a certainty of genuine self-determination for the South. The Communists' maximum goals were set forth in the four points of 1965--U.S. military withdrawal; no outside military alliances for either North or South; settlement of the South's internal affairs "in accordance with the program" of the N.L.F., and eventual reunification of North and South.
Neither is likely to achieve its full demands. The U.S. may get assurances that the South will not immediately go Communist, but they are unlikely to be the sort of ironclad guarantees that Washington would like. Hanoi may get the N.L.F. recognized as a legal party, but not as a controlling force in a coalition government. If there is to be a settlement at all, it must be one that hews fairly closely to the existing situation. As Columbia Political Scientist Zbigniew Brzezinsky put it recently: "A settlement is a ratification of reality, not a structuring of reality."
Endless Effort. Both sides will have to accept certain realities if agreement is ever to be reached. The U.S. will have to reconcile itself to the prospect that future Saigon governments will include at least some Communists. Hanoi will have to accept the reality that even a phased U.S. withdrawal from Viet Nam will probably require at least three to five years. U.S. air power is likely to offer the South a protective umbrella for a much longer period.
And even after the day arrives when "the last American soldier will have stacked arms in Viet Nam" and "the last sortie will have been flown," as Johnson put it, Washington does not foresee a day when the U.S. will turn its back on Asia. "We have learned that the destiny of the U.S. is--once and for all--bound up with the fate of the peoples of Asia and the Pacific," the President said in Hawaii last month. He assumes that peace, if it comes, will not dissolve those bonds but secure them in more mutually beneficial ways. Nor will that be an easy task. "We often think about peace as an absence of war," Lyndon Johnson reflected last week. "But in fact peace is a struggle, an achievement, an endless effort to convert hostility into negotiation, bloody violence into politics, and hate into reconciliation."
* Switzerland, Laos, Burma, Indonesia, India, Ceylon, Japan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Italy, Belgium, Finland, Austria. In addition, other locales in Algeria, Rumania, Egypt and Tanzania were mentioned.
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