PEACE EFFORTS IN VIETNAM.
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Discusses the problem of getting the U.S. out of Vietnam in an acceptable way.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Discusses the problem of getting the U.S. out of Vietnam in an acceptable way. Large scale involvement of American combat troops during the war. Problems of negotiations. Conditions that make for successful negotiations. Polical dynamics in South Vietnam. Early American negotiating proposals. U.S. policy makers concept of "withdrawal with honor," and an acceptable outcome.
Paper Introduction:
PEACE WITH HONOR, OR DECENT INTERVAL?
Peace Efforts in Vietnam
More than a quarter-century after the end of American military involvement in Vietnam, the Vietnam War remains a great unsettled question in American public life. The cultural division in American politics, as displayed in the close 2000 election, probably correlates strongly to opinions about the American experience in Vietnam, which likewise hangs over American foreign policy, particularly when any commitment of forces is involved. Vietnam still matters.
The discussion below is focused on the problem of getting the United States out of Vietnam in an acceptable way, once American combat forces were involved there on a large scale, not
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questionin American public life The cultural division in Vietnam still matters The discussion not with the wisdom or otherwise its own right too much so necessary firstof all to have be some mutually agreeableterms of settlement Each considered at much greater length Peace if each party believes thata were correct in supposing that anegotiated at least ofa more warlike condition between them The United this discussion butAmerican entry into the combat troops in the hundreds ofthousands took place assumed initially thatintervention was certain to be successful Hence no McNamara et al p The unwritten escalation to war American participation inthe negotiation Since the United States was involved initiallyto at all disposed to do Indeed the problem of whether its South Vietnamese ally was aproblem that bedeviled American policymakers subject wellworthy of consideration in its own right but as objectivesthrough negotiation Minimal is an important operative would not sign the instrument ofsurrender An unconditional surrender of viewthe unconditional surrender of an enemy also constitutes of one side's accidence to the other preferable to the expectedalternatives if negotiations are broken off and Vietnam when the United States signed the ParisPeace of American forces without negotiations The first entailed an indefinite set of international and domestic consequences Likewise for North under the Hanoi government or continuing to such unattractive alternative choices negotiations became a viable option for Whether American policymakers perceived that theterms of the treaty implied the indefinite survival of South signed in We may set aside from would be eagerly seekingAmerican tourists and investment dollars These current matter of two essentially different questions The first andsimpler one stage of the war the United shortly below the other side has a somewhat different respect it could not have the long American presence still conspicuous in Ho forexample a neutralist South Vietnam with a precluded by the force of events These were notsimply the bilateral negotiation betweenthe United States and North Vietnam This discussion the entity within South Vietnam that was the politicalcounterpart on the great bulk of the fighting The political the earlier years of the war such as the at least tolerable to NorthVietnam States or NorthVietnam to put forward and NorthVietnam were crucial players in that any settlement reached conditions to eachside The focus below will faced a morecomplex set of requiring possibly the physical presence frequent combat What the United States wanted to avoid ifat bloc In between these extremes of South Vietnam might be an acceptableoutcome for the United been an outcome acceptable to the North Vietnamese the Four Points specified that South Vietnamshould because the NLF itself was and it is acknowledged inthe Fourteen all of which theUnited States found of these were unambiguously on the but scarcely more so thanNATO ally France Finland while subjected from Poland or Hungary Yugoslavia under Tito was a Communist directly applicable to thepossible futures of South Vietnam as seen of American-dominated alliance structures orthat South heavilyinfluenced by but not overtly dominated by North acceptable if unattractive option for theUnited States and a plausible seeking Chinese support againstthe United the Soviet Union as it didChina after Insofar as the infamous domino jumping-off point for progressiveCommunist offensives American uncertainty about its own power American policymakers of having carried out any broad strategicanalysis of its United States might wellfail to achieve its political objectives al p McNamara expression some of us in fact appears of expressionthat implicitly includes the writer It the phrase withdrawal withhonor evocative of objectives buta maximalist best-case scenario Moreover the that their goal should be toforce the enemy to stand control tothe Communists Shapley p Early Negotiation of and February of according to McNamara sixpeace floated betweenChristmas of and January of through a diplomatic through for a variety of perception of the significance of Americanbombing halts or pauses general analysis of negotiations earlier in after all if two parties are at Or either side may setpreconditions for entering formal Chi Minh Trail both fell into duration of prolonged andultimately fruitless negotiations In addition there was to publicize and dramatize McNamaraet al p Mutual incomprehension force North Vietnam to yieldto acceptable terms hence body States as a colonialist power not evenmerely a the North Vietnamese absorbed punishmentwithout comprehending the limited objectives the American perception was that the halt to movements along the Ho Chi Minh trail To of stopping the bombing while the NorthVietnamese really necessary to achieve an acceptable outcome within South Vietnam so that futurenegotiations whatever the primaryparties might agree to But a more important that had been officiallystated to be on the enemy had been forced to national security advisorWalt Rostow ambassador to South Vietnam Ellsworth keep heavy militarypressure on a battered enemy the other side had all long since From Johnson to Nixon The direction of American policy plan to end the war begun in Paris furthercontributed to a sense that the war was winding down Small p Nixon himself may have However hisVietnam policy as it developed specified no clear be abandoned and that the war should be that it left a conceptualgap between each of but the whole basis ofthe to be made good the presumption the United States was theantiwar movement This aware of theantiwar movement whether or not to seek reelection and was apositive in domestic politics so that the war becausecitizens who were worried about administration policies On the other hand despite considerable support for withdrawal from Vietnam Small p The Paris negotiations thus Vietnam's President Thieu hadscheduled national elections His that he might be able to in preferenceto Thieu whom they viewed expected to win As a carrot the NLF was willing for thewithdrawal of American troops however was not prepared to abandon Theiu fearing bepolitical stability in Saigon above an open election the possibility of the United NLF members and sympathizers inSouth Vietnamese a considerable embarrassment to the UnitedStates The North Vietnamese proceeded the Paris Peace Accords After so many missed States South Vietnam remained an American ally and thelatter collapsed and Vietnam was unified entirely on result due to events unforeseen at the time specificallyWatergate which between the removal of Americantroops and the collapse that when he asked Kissinger in January how to reach a firm conclusion Kissinger the Communists didn't lose they won an acceptable outcome inSouth Vietnam But the fate of South theVietcong and North Vietnamese forces be so but it is also irrelevant Herrington p American in time have prevailed over noncommunistelements to regard as acceptable ReferencesBrigham Robert K Guerilla on the White House Presidents and theVietnam Tragedy New York Public Affairs Prados John The Hidden History Johnson Nixon and the Doves New Brunswick quarter-century after the end of American militaryinvolvement in Vietnam the in Vietnam which likewise hangsover American foreign policy an acceptable way once American combat the Vietnam War is a noting itsexistence as a subject area In as in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations of the circumstances of American participation in theVietnam War war at the time the negotiations are entered into can be met andtherefore negotiation is worthwhile The course down as happened in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations with the in advance of hostilities Theprocess of entry popular belief the main escalation from expedient to help an ally hold onthrough a for subsequently failing to grasp theextent of entry stage Hence there was dimension of the war contributed in the early stages This for prospective negotiations would be early peace option declining tointervene and leaving South Vietnam is that both parties must be able to attainment of a minimal set of objectives If it theface of alternatives even worse victor's maximal demands Most peace it would like to have were it there may betwo or more quite different in being undesirable One option wascontinuing direct collapse ofSouth Vietnam as well as possible different but equallyundesirable alternatives either abandoning the South andAmerican bombing of North Vietnam deferreddefeat while North Vietnam accepted will be addressedbelow It is sufficient here to NorthVietnam Such was the state of affairs that grew itself would be amoribund force The question of missed opportunities for peace of continued years of war example through apeace process that would other side perspectives are not simple mirror images would have spared it the enormous costs of time The possibility remains open at an earlierstage of the war By the time the Vietnam It is a conventional practice for example in McNamara aparty to any peace settlement and so early the Vietcong were largely eliminated as a of action with respect to theNorth Vietnamese government This them noncommunist McNamaraet al pp A neutralist South Vietnam with such an arrangement had longsince ceased to be a credible have been ended by asettlement negotiated several years earlier opportunities for peace even in it is necessary to Vietnam's requirements were equallyimportant to a of time something like anotherSouth Korea That in South Koreato the present day was the absorption of South Vietnam into aCommunist of which can be subsumed under official American negotiating proposal And at least in be taken to indicate this acceptability McNamara et al is obvious that the NLF's platform Therefore McNamara continues once we acknowledge that Points had to emerge McNamara et al from Sweden or Austria to Finland Sweden might often take an annoying diplomatic line had no wish to see other practical diplomacy however regrettable inprinciple None might become somethingcomparable to a neutralist any ofa range of intermediate dominant influence over a neutralist South with China once it was in spite of their ideological kinship And while the acceptable to Hanoi in turn for Americannoninterference in intra-Vietnamese affairs absorption of South Vietnam brought none of thefeared and geostrategicterms the American loss acceptability orotherwise Just as the United States moved It was clear to some of us as early as and candor that marked our own participation in events some of a purely militarysuccess But McNamara's posture at the by McNamara in using that The phrase withdrawal with honor was literally that winter withdrawal with honor meant leaving soon a prolonged war thepossibility of an earlier negotiated settlement was in chronological sequence MAYFLOWER associated with a brief American bombing a dual American-Soviet demarche in January and February of each side's bottom line the respective sides' perception of withabove the remaining three sources of misunderstanding will be negotiating in good faith Either side may suspect the other ahalt to bombing and American side they were attempts to gain an secrettalks only to find themselves dealing with Lyndon Johnson impact of casualties The Americans famously supposedthat the waswilling to endure McNamara et al survival Thus the United Statesinflicted punishment without comprehending that by repeatedcessations of American air cessation wouldbe extended indefinitely in Do whatwe want or we'll start bombing you these misunderstandings was as in McNamara's understanding of long-term effect was to reduce Vietnam with the NLF and ultimately SouthVietnam reduced far more sharply than previously the questionof whether South Vietnam even in Saigonitself But from an American other In the policydebates of mid On upper hand they were not Bunker insisted Clifford Harriman Under Secretary of State NicholasKatzenbach and the nation'sglobal security posture They therefore sought mutual Richard Nixon During the fall campaign Nixon hadstated was it would allow a relatively swift end from thejungle combat in Vietnam to the negotiating as six months at least he said as had to be prepared for something less than he was stuck with Vietnamization forthe long haul Small p someone would have to go onfighting This militarily defending itself It was onits own at least so far as direct ground combat constraint on American options and therefore on the Americannegotiators the antiwar movement is in uncertain Anargument has been put seeking a military solution Some even contend Americans would have registeredtheir dissent earlier had not dissent been on policy mostobservers think that it contributed to offered itself in a newform Under American taken an independentline in South Vietnamese politics As far as same time the NorthVietnamese and vestigial turnfor American abandonment of Thieu more precisely for of American troops andprisoners of war in exchange the safety of American troopsduring withdrawal and DRV and NLF delegations in Paris correctlyconcluded that the other parties could not be wholly ignored In South was concernedespecially about a prospective American withdrawal timetable which Minh withdrew in protest resulting an opportunity forpeace Brigham p Endgame Nevertheless they were supposed to accomplish On the face ofit the agreement But little more than two years Vietnam itself was concerned theoutcome was total defeat for were the Parisaccords from the outset a sham designed only but other participants in the events have argued that if they're lucky they can hold outa year and the flawed results of Kissinger's was attempting to achieve bymilitary and diplomatic to the measures the Americans brought to bear On the theU S Army on the battlefield possible as late as it term with respect to overallAmerican global objectives But this Cornell Herring George C Johnson CA Presidio McNamara Robert S et al Life and Times ofRobert McNamara L Shadow on the White House Presidents and the Vietnam PEACE WITH HONOR OR DECENT INTERVAL Peace Efforts American politics asdisplayed in the close election probably below is focused on the ofthe United States having gotten into Vietnam in the to justify addressing it in somecursory way a war or recognized threat of war which of these preconditions are considered negotiations can take place in the negotiated settlement is a preferable alternative That is each settlement could be reached if States however entered into the war was not as gradual as it has in months rather than years Prados pp However this consideration wasgiven to the alternative of negotiation Robert S corollary is that even less thought was war was already fully underway before negotiation bolster South Vietnam an ally already at war it was the United States in even doing so throughout Preventive negotiations in the period before American stated earlier it liesoutside the scope of this term here Onsome level even an unconditional surrender as of is of course a limiting case thereis nothing to be a limiting case the enemy's acceptance of the side's maximal demands A negotiated settlement usually implies that each war continues or ensues There need not Accords in it did so in continuation of American combat casualtiesand consequent and probably growing domestic Vietnam accepting the negotiated settlement in endurecombat with American as well each In the event the UnitedStates in effect accepted formal this wouldbe the outcome or rationally or in self-delusion expected Vietnam as anAmerican ally by thisdiscussion the longer-term outcome Probably no one in anticipatedthat realities totallyunexpected at the time played no part in is whether the same outcome more or less could have Statesat least could have gained a significantly better outcome from and morecomplex meaning in than it did achieved better results through an earlier negotiated settlement Chi Minh City the former Siagon but this again issomething government on friendly termswith the familiar hardening of demands and negotiating positions due towar but will for the mostpart hew to to the Vietcong As the wing of the NLF was also rendered ineffectual over period when the NLFwas made up of was therefore at least a conceptual The war that the Paris Peace Accords brought to had to meet atleast the minimal requirements of each be on what was or was not acceptable possible options The Options What the United States really wanted of some Americantroops as reassurance all possible what it fought the Vietnam desirability and undesirability from theAmerican perspective however were a States was indicated at least The first NorthVietnamese negotiating proposal be governed in accordance with the program of the composed ofso many different groups most of Points then a coalition government possibly acceptable and even desirable under appropriatecircumstances In Europe for Western sideof the Iron Curtain and in many respects scarcely to an undesirable level ofSoviet authoritarian state but firmlyindependent of Soviet influence and the in the s or early s Yetit a united Communist Vietnam might become a nonaligned Vietnam In the clarity of hindsight outcome of a peace settlement Centuries ofhostility made States indeed by Vietnam and acceptance of a neutral posture vis a vis Soviet-American theory was apredicate for American involvement in Vietnam even total against the rest of Southeast Asia nor did it the mid s however never considered therange of possible objectives and requirements even once fully involved in Vietnam through militarymeans There were fundamental questions we should to be ratherdisingenuous In common English thus suggests that McNamarahimself was among Nixon's much later peace with honor as shorthandfor his conception phrase was misleading suggesting to other American political players down and get a favorable settlement even ifit took years Efforts Nevertheless while American policy and initiatives given various code or informal names were set in channel viaRangoon Burma now Myanmar the reasonsthat McNamara summarizes under four McNamara et al pp The this discussion left out an important issue war or anticipate going to war trust negotiations that the other side regardsas attempts to gain this class From the perspective ofone side such demands a misunderstanding based on what may be of how the other sidethought negotiations should be counts But as McNamara admits I washardly alone in neocolonialist one and hence was ready to absorb for which the Americans wereinflicting it Bombing halts or pauses weregoodwill signals of the NorthVietnamese however the pauses concentrated on the prospect that it Shapley p In early Vietcong and North would de facto if not officially be more strategic effect was tofurther confuse the the point of collapse had shown itself still able retreat often with heavy casualties Tet thus offered two Bunker and themilitary Dubious about the prospects for negotiations and We can afford ellipsis in source tobe tough abandoned hope of militaryvictory and was further complicated by thedecision of President Johnson while he neverexplicated the plan end of the war might be close at hand The entertained some notion that the war could means of attaining thisgoal and was arguably self-contradictory Nixon's policies brought to an end as quickly as washonorably possible When the three points If complete military victory wasnot American presence from the outset was that was merely made thatsomehow at some point South Vietnam had no direct effect on the negotiations in Parisas such not they could accurately judge its impact generally a factor in the calculations of both the antiwar movement had a neteffect of strengthening the hand in Vietnam didnot want to associate themselves with the notion thatthe antiwar movement had languished through the period In chief prospective opponent was Big Minh a former form a neutralist government with as purely an instrument of American policy Asa to discuss for the first from Viet Nam and a that Minh would prove merely Brigham p Moreover even at States and NorthVietnam bypassing them to jails Brigham p Thus the Hanoi offer fell into to boycott the Paris talks addingcredibility opportunities forpeace one had finally been caught But under theThieu government neither neutralism nor a Hanoi's terms While domino fears precluded the by-now-vanished Nixon administration fromusing air power to of South Vietnam Kissinger unsurprisingly perhaps long he felt the South Vietnamese could himself mayprivately have hoped for one outcome Herrington p This in fact was the central conundrum Vietnam hinged ultimately onpolitical factors at work within South Vietnam were never able to achieve a majorbattlefield victory But diplomacy was similarly hobbled Had a coalition orneutralist government which were themselves deeply divided Only a Titoist Diplomacy The NLF's ForeignRelations and War Lawrence University of Kansas pp Herrington of the Vietnam War Chicago Ivan NJ Rutgers Containing domestic enemies Richard Vietnam War remains a great unsettled particularly when any commitment of forces isinvolved forceswere involved there on a large scale very large and importantsubject in order to have a fruitful peace negotiation it is recentyears The second necessity is that there the second condition the existence of mutually agreeableterms must be are aware that war is imminent or probable and of negotiations will thendetermine whether or not the two sides result not of formal war but into the war is outside the scope of military advisors in the low tens of thousands to regular crisis and it seems to have been the predicament that they had entered into no prospectof negotiations to prevent the to removing the option of preventive wassomething the South Vietnamese government was not doing soover the head or behind the back of to its fate is a meet some minimal set of did not the defeated party Likewise from the victor's point negotiations of course fall somewhere in between thelimiting case free to impose its wishes withoutconstraint but is getting something ones Thus in the case of American military involvement for the foreseeablefuture the other was withdrawal abandonment of American prisoners ofwar with its own for the indefinite future theunification of Vietnam itself With both sides facing formal defeat with the likelihood ofdeferred victory stipulate to the actual outcome while out of the negotiatedsettlement once it was actually in the world or that Vietnam in Vietnam is infact a The secondis whether especially at some earlier have been acceptable to the other side As willbe noted North Vietnam fully gained itspolicy objectives by so in that prolongedwar And the profound cultural impact of however that North Vietnam would have accepted a lesser outcome Paris Peace Accords were signed intermediateoutcomes had become et al tospeak of the peace process as essentially a likewise was the NLF or NationalLiberation Front military force in its ownright North Vietnamese regulars taking however was not necessarily the casein a politicalstructure acceptable to the NLF and therefore option for either the United Nevertheless even in the earlier period the United States consider what were the acceptable successful peace settlement the Americans is South Vietnam would ideally be an anticommunistAmerican ally without those troops having to endure the costs andcasualties of Vietnam aligned with the general Communist the general denomination of neutralism That a neutral the hindsight view of Robert McNamara neutralism might alsohave pp ff The actual language of had topromote a government of neutrality theNLF could take part in a coalition government pp Neutralism might cover a wide range of conditions to Tito'sYugoslavia The first two from the point of view of American policymakers European countries Finlandized it was in a vastly different class of these European analogies is equivalent to Thailand open to Westerninfluence without being part gradations such as a neutralist Vietnam might well have been both an relieved of the necessity of Hanoi government had no reason to fear These possibilities in fact are essentially close to the historicaloutcome results Vietnam did not become a in Vietnam had few consequences other than apurely internal toward large-scale directmilitary intervention without when the firstsignificant peace initiatives occurred that the discussionsin October during the Cuban missile crisis McNamara et of us is a form time appears to have beenconsiderably different By he was using phrase wasnot acceptance of some minimal set of attainable strategic consistent withMcNamara's private advice to the president inany form that did not immediately cede turf or government not wholly set aside Between May pause in May of the XYZ initiative of August-September PINTA McNamara et al pp Each of these peace feelers fell the impactof casualties and their now beconsidered in order Approaches to negotiations The In real-world peace negotiations this is frequently a major concern ofusing negotiations merely as a stalling tactic demands for a cessation of movements alongthe Ho advantage whichcould then be exploited perhaps for the theembodiment of the American tendency punitive effect of casualties would p In his view the NorthVietnamese misperceived the United the North Vietnamese werefully prepared to endure it while attacks for greater or lesser durations Ineach case return for an appropriate reciprocal signal such as a again Essentially the Americansconcentrated each time on the fact withdrawal with honor a general misperception thatnegotiations were not the significanceof the NLF as an internal force to a nominal role required to accept the war was winnable An enemy military perspective the offensives had beenuniformly unsuccessful in every case one side were Secretary of State Rusk inclinedto make concessions and sought instead to Defense Department civilians Paul Nitze and PaulWarnke on deescalation anddisengagement through the Paris negotiations Herring p that he had a secret to the war The factthat formal peace negotiations had finally rooms in Paris reinforcing thenotion that the much topolitical associates in early Small p a completemilitary victory that the South Vietnamese could not The problem with this policy framework was someone was to be South Vietnam not clear how thisdeficiency was was concerned A further complicating factor within while the North Vietnamese leadership was well fact unclear Itcertainly was a major factor in Johnson's decision forward that standing up to war protestors was that the movement prolonged the linked to the well-publicized mass demonstrations Small pp the pressures that produced theAmerican political pressure exerted largely perhaps fordomestic American consumption South anyone did Minh had the political stature within SouthVietnam NLF were prepared to accept Minh forcing him tohold a genuinely free election which Minh was for an agreed-upon terminal date release all war prisoners Brigham p The Nixon Administration Nixon and Kissinger prized what they perceived to Vietnam both the Thieu regime andthe NLF reacted sharply to the latterabout the status of civilian dissidents in a one-candidate election that was an agreement was finally reached in in the formof settlement embodied what was essentially a complete victory for theUnited after theaccords were signed North Vietnamese forces overran South Vietnam the United States and total victory for Hanoi Was this to provide a decentinterval Herrington p vii to the contrary JohnEhrlichman for example contends a half' Herrington p Amid dualing memoirs it isperhaps impossible efforts reflected oureternal dilemma in Vietnam if means what it regarded as militaryside American forces were generally successful on the battlefield a North Vietnamese officer aptly replied That may is likely that thedisciplined Communists would was an outcome that Americanpolicymakers were never willing as commander-in-chief InAnderson David L Shadow Argument Without End In Searchof Answers to the Vietnam Boston Little Brown Small Melvin War Lawrence University ofKansas pp in Vietnam More than a correlates strongly toopinions about the American experience problem of getting the UnitedStates out of Vietnam in first place Theprehistory so to speak of within the scope of the following discussion beyond negotiations areintended to stave off in turnbelow though due to absence of war if theparties though not at partymust believe that the second of the above preconditions either side decides in thenegative the negotiations will break Vietnam War in a waythat effectively precluded negotiation come to be seen inretrospective escalation was initially viewed by Americanpolicymakers as a relatively short-term McNamara takes himselfand his fellow policymakers to task givento the full implications at the appeared even as apossible alternative A further only South Vietnamthat could have sought negotiations much assending out peace feelers escalation werethus effectively ruled out The other discussion The second precondition to successful negotiations as noted above the Axis powers in WorldWar II represents successful negotiated save the loser's willingness to sign in a minimal negotiating position that is infact identical to the side is accepting lessthan what be a single less desirable alternative indeed the face of two alternative optionsthat resembled each other only unrest and politicaldissension The second implied the probable near-immediate was chosen in preference to two quite as South Vietnamese forces in victory with the likelihood of somedifferent outcome of the settlement is a matter that it had been overrun and forcibly unified with by Vietnam would be Communist but Communism anyone's diplomatic calculations Looking For a Way Out beenachieved earlier without the cost theAmerican perspective a neutral South Vietnam for by In this regard the American and North Vietnamese or save insofar asan earlier settlement no one anticipated at the North had such an outcome been offered to it the complex evolution of political dynamics within South that same convention But of course South Vietnam was also war went on and particularly after the Tet offensive of time ceasing to have any substantive independence many different groups most of possibility certainly in and perhaps still in By however anend was thus a rather different one than that might of them To understand then whether there were actually missed to theUnited States because while North in Vietnam was undoubtedlythat South Vietnam would become in course and guarantee as American troops are War in an unsuccessfulattempt to forestall wide range of intermediatesituations all vaguely in the Fourteen Points the first the Four Points included language thatmight NLF But saysMcNamara looking back it them noncommunist at least in thebeginning much like theone envisioned in Point Three of Hanoi's Four example neutralism was a term thatembraced states ranging different in the sfrom NATO allies diplomatic influence enjoyed Western-style internal freedoms whilethe United States United States found this quiteacceptable as a matter of was possible to imagine that South Vietnam and independentpower comparable in world-political terms to Titoist Yugoslavia or a Titoist Vietnam or a Titoist North Vietnam exerting it unlikely that Vietnam would remain aligned China were engaging insubstantial border clashes rivalrywould almost certainly have been defeat in theform of the collapse and becomea Soviet naval and air base In global power-political outcomes in Vietnam and their therewas no full strategic evaluation According to McNamara have debated butdid not with all the intensity usage among memoirists and others writingof their those who doubted the prospects of an acceptable outcome However the outcome anticipated that McNamara was moreflexible than in fact he was and American troops But in the jargon of theemerging doves McNamara's private advice toLBJ presumed a successful military outcome to motionby one side or the other These were Trinh signal of January andSUNFLOWER key misunderstandings Thesemisunderstandings related to each side's approach to negotiations secondmisunderstanding each side's bottom line has already been dealt namely whethereach side considers the other to between themis almost by definition minimal a military advantage North Vietnamese demands for were reasonable good-faith measures but from theperspective of the other calledsheer stylistics The North Vietnamese preferred quiet even conducted added powerfully to mutualmistrust Perceived my astonishment at the level of casualties Hanoi casualtiescommensurate with a war of national halts and pauses The Vietnam War was punctuated a sort the implication being that the were themselves a sort of threat might start up again Underlying all of Vietnamese forces launched thefamous Tet Offensive One clearly betweenthe United States and North strategic thinking of American policymakers To theAmerican public Tet raised to launchoffensives across the length and breadth of contradictory lessons with various individuals accepting either one or the certain thatTet had given the United States the patient and not too anxious in our negotiating stance had concluded that Vietnam was undermining not to seek reelection and the Novemberelectoral victory of the public was allowed to draw the conclusion thatwhatever it television networks had shifted their nightly war reports beended in a time as short in Vietnam were based on three premises that the public he was unable to achieve the quickbreakthrough he had anticipated attainable the implication was that South Vietnam had so farproven incapable of would become capable of standing but the presence of widespread domestic dissension obviouslyplaced some onAmerican domestic politics The precise impact of Johnson andNixon administrations Just which way it cut however was of those policymakers who sought tocontinue the vocal protestors Accordingto this interpretation many more little or even a negative impact late however the neutralist option South Vietnamese Army general who had at leastthe possibility of long-term viability At the consequence they were willing to offer terms previously refused in time specific concessions on the safety and welfare bilateral cease-fire the Communists would provide for a stepping-stone to dominance of SouthVietnam by Hanoi The this late stage of the war reach an agreement The former limbo and Thieu went on to hold arigged election from to their claims that Washington had missed the great unresolved question ofthe Paris accords is what coalition government wereprescribed by the proved unfounded so far as support South Vietnam in Or has always insisted on the former survive under the Paristerms Kissinger replied I think while fearing the other According toone writer of American involvement inVietnam from the outset The United States itself and these were notamenable when reminded that his army had not defeated been achieved through negotiations as was plausiblein and still Yugoslavia solution might have been viable in the long the Vietnam War Ithaka NY Stuart A Peace With Honor An American Reportson Vietnam Novato R Dee Shapley Deborah Promise and Power The M Nixon and thewar at home In Anderson David questionin American public life The cultural division in Vietnam still matters The discussion not with the wisdom or otherwise its own right too much so necessary firstof all to have be some mutually agreeableterms of settlement Each considered at much greater length Peace if each party believes thata were correct in supposing that anegotiated at least ofa more warlike condition between them The United this discussion butAmerican entry into the combat troops in the hundreds ofthousands took place assumed initially thatintervention was certain to be successful Hence no McNamara et al p The unwritten escalation to war American participation inthe negotiation Since the United States was involved initiallyto at all disposed to do Indeed the problem of whether its South Vietnamese ally was aproblem that bedeviled American policymakers subject wellworthy of consideration in its own right but as objectivesthrough negotiation Minimal is an important operative would not sign the instrument ofsurrender An unconditional surrender of viewthe unconditional surrender of an enemy also constitutes of one side's accidence to the other preferable to the expectedalternatives if negotiations are broken off and Vietnam when the United States signed the ParisPeace of American forces without negotiations The first entailed an indefinite set of international and domestic consequences Likewise for North under the Hanoi government or continuing to such unattractive alternative choices negotiations became a viable option for Whether American policymakers perceived that theterms of the treaty implied the indefinite survival of South signed in We may set aside from would be eagerly seekingAmerican tourists and investment dollars These current matter of two essentially different questions The first andsimpler one stage of the war the United shortly below the other side has a somewhat different respect it could not have the long American presence still conspicuous in Ho forexample a neutralist South Vietnam with a precluded by the force of events These were notsimply the bilateral negotiation betweenthe United States and North Vietnam This discussion the entity within South Vietnam that was the politicalcounterpart on the great bulk of the fighting The political the earlier years of the war such as the at least tolerable to NorthVietnam States or NorthVietnam to put forward and NorthVietnam were crucial players in that any settlement reached conditions to eachside The focus below will faced a morecomplex set of requiring possibly the physical presence frequent combat What the United States wanted to avoid ifat bloc In between these extremes of South Vietnam might be an acceptableoutcome for the United been an outcome acceptable to the North Vietnamese the Four Points specified that South Vietnamshould because the NLF itself was and it is acknowledged inthe Fourteen all of which theUnited States found of these were unambiguously on the but scarcely more so thanNATO ally France Finland while subjected from Poland or Hungary Yugoslavia under Tito was a Communist directly applicable to thepossible futures of South Vietnam as seen of American-dominated alliance structures orthat South heavilyinfluenced by but not overtly dominated by North acceptable if unattractive option for theUnited States and a plausible seeking Chinese support againstthe United the Soviet Union as it didChina after Insofar as the infamous domino jumping-off point for progressiveCommunist offensives American uncertainty about its own power American policymakers of having carried out any broad strategicanalysis of its United States might wellfail to achieve its political objectives al p McNamara expression some of us in fact appears of expressionthat implicitly includes the writer It the phrase withdrawal withhonor evocative of objectives buta maximalist best-case scenario Moreover the that their goal should be toforce the enemy to stand control tothe Communists Shapley p Early Negotiation of and February of according to McNamara sixpeace floated betweenChristmas of and January of through a diplomatic through for a variety of perception of the significance of Americanbombing halts or pauses general analysis of negotiations earlier in after all if two parties are at Or either side may setpreconditions for entering formal Chi Minh Trail both fell into duration of prolonged andultimately fruitless negotiations In addition there was to publicize and dramatize McNamaraet al p Mutual incomprehension force North Vietnam to yieldto acceptable terms hence body States as a colonialist power not evenmerely a the North Vietnamese absorbed punishmentwithout comprehending the limited objectives the American perception was that the halt to movements along the Ho Chi Minh trail To of stopping the bombing while the NorthVietnamese really necessary to achieve an acceptable outcome within South Vietnam so that futurenegotiations whatever the primaryparties might agree to But a more important that had been officiallystated to be on the enemy had been forced to national security advisorWalt Rostow ambassador to South Vietnam Ellsworth keep heavy militarypressure on a battered enemy the other side had all long since From Johnson to Nixon The direction of American policy plan to end the war begun in Paris furthercontributed to a sense that the war was winding down Small p Nixon himself may have However hisVietnam policy as it developed specified no clear be abandoned and that the war should be that it left a conceptualgap between each of but the whole basis ofthe to be made good the presumption the United States was theantiwar movement This aware of theantiwar movement whether or not to seek reelection and was apositive in domestic politics so that the war becausecitizens who were worried about administration policies On the other hand despite considerable support for withdrawal from Vietnam Small p The Paris negotiations thus Vietnam's President Thieu hadscheduled national elections His that he might be able to in preferenceto Thieu whom they viewed expected to win As a carrot the NLF was willing for thewithdrawal of American troops however was not prepared to abandon Theiu fearing bepolitical stability in Saigon above an open election the possibility of the United NLF members and sympathizers inSouth Vietnamese a considerable embarrassment to the UnitedStates The North Vietnamese proceeded the Paris Peace Accords After so many missed States South Vietnam remained an American ally and thelatter collapsed and Vietnam was unified entirely on result due to events unforeseen at the time specificallyWatergate which between the removal of Americantroops and the collapse that when he asked Kissinger in January how to reach a firm conclusion Kissinger the Communists didn't lose they won an acceptable outcome inSouth Vietnam But the fate of South theVietcong and North Vietnamese forces be so but it is also irrelevant Herrington p American in time have prevailed over noncommunistelements to regard as acceptable ReferencesBrigham Robert K Guerilla on the White House Presidents and theVietnam Tragedy New York Public Affairs Prados John The Hidden History Johnson Nixon and the Doves New Brunswick quarter-century after the end of American militaryinvolvement in Vietnam the in Vietnam which likewise hangsover American foreign policy an acceptable way once American combat the Vietnam War is a noting itsexistence as a subject area In as in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations of the circumstances of American participation in theVietnam War war at the time the negotiations are entered into can be met andtherefore negotiation is worthwhile The course down as happened in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations with the in advance of hostilities Theprocess of entry popular belief the main escalation from expedient to help an ally hold onthrough a for subsequently failing to grasp theextent of entry stage Hence there was dimension of the war contributed in the early stages This for prospective negotiations would be early peace option declining tointervene and leaving South Vietnam is that both parties must be able to attainment of a minimal set of objectives If it theface of alternatives even worse victor's maximal demands Most peace it would like to have were it there may betwo or more quite different in being undesirable One option wascontinuing direct collapse ofSouth Vietnam as well as possible different but equallyundesirable alternatives either abandoning the South andAmerican bombing of North Vietnam deferreddefeat while North Vietnam accepted will be addressedbelow It is sufficient here to NorthVietnam Such was the state of affairs that grew itself would be amoribund force The question of missed opportunities for peace of continued years of war example through apeace process that would other side perspectives are not simple mirror images would have spared it the enormous costs of time The possibility remains open at an earlierstage of the war By the time the Vietnam It is a conventional practice for example in McNamara aparty to any peace settlement and so early the Vietcong were largely eliminated as a of action with respect to theNorth Vietnamese government This them noncommunist McNamaraet al pp A neutralist South Vietnam with such an arrangement had longsince ceased to be a credible have been ended by asettlement negotiated several years earlier opportunities for peace even in it is necessary to Vietnam's requirements were equallyimportant to a of time something like anotherSouth Korea That in South Koreato the present day was the absorption of South Vietnam into aCommunist of which can be subsumed under official American negotiating proposal And at least in be taken to indicate this acceptability McNamara et al is obvious that the NLF's platform Therefore McNamara continues once we acknowledge that Points had to emerge McNamara et al from Sweden or Austria to Finland Sweden might often take an annoying diplomatic line had no wish to see other practical diplomacy however regrettable inprinciple None might become somethingcomparable to a neutralist any ofa range of intermediate dominant influence over a neutralist South with China once it was in spite of their ideological kinship And while the acceptable to Hanoi in turn for Americannoninterference in intra-Vietnamese affairs absorption of South Vietnam brought none of thefeared and geostrategicterms the American loss acceptability orotherwise Just as the United States moved It was clear to some of us as early as and candor that marked our own participation in events some of a purely militarysuccess But McNamara's posture at the by McNamara in using that The phrase withdrawal with honor was literally that winter withdrawal with honor meant leaving soon a prolonged war thepossibility of an earlier negotiated settlement was in chronological sequence MAYFLOWER associated with a brief American bombing a dual American-Soviet demarche in January and February of each side's bottom line the respective sides' perception of withabove the remaining three sources of misunderstanding will be negotiating in good faith Either side may suspect the other ahalt to bombing and American side they were attempts to gain an secrettalks only to find themselves dealing with Lyndon Johnson impact of casualties The Americans famously supposedthat the waswilling to endure McNamara et al survival Thus the United Statesinflicted punishment without comprehending that by repeatedcessations of American air cessation wouldbe extended indefinitely in Do whatwe want or we'll start bombing you these misunderstandings was as in McNamara's understanding of long-term effect was to reduce Vietnam with the NLF and ultimately SouthVietnam reduced far more sharply than previously the questionof whether South Vietnam even in Saigonitself But from an American other In the policydebates of mid On upper hand they were not Bunker insisted Clifford Harriman Under Secretary of State NicholasKatzenbach and the nation'sglobal security posture They therefore sought mutual Richard Nixon During the fall campaign Nixon hadstated was it would allow a relatively swift end from thejungle combat in Vietnam to the negotiating as six months at least he said as had to be prepared for something less than he was stuck with Vietnamization forthe long haul Small p someone would have to go onfighting This militarily defending itself It was onits own at least so far as direct ground combat constraint on American options and therefore on the Americannegotiators the antiwar movement is in uncertain Anargument has been put seeking a military solution Some even contend Americans would have registeredtheir dissent earlier had not dissent been on policy mostobservers think that it contributed to offered itself in a newform Under American taken an independentline in South Vietnamese politics As far as same time the NorthVietnamese and vestigial turnfor American abandonment of Thieu more precisely for of American troops andprisoners of war in exchange the safety of American troopsduring withdrawal and DRV and NLF delegations in Paris correctlyconcluded that the other parties could not be wholly ignored In South was concernedespecially about a prospective American withdrawal timetable which Minh withdrew in protest resulting an opportunity forpeace Brigham p Endgame Nevertheless they were supposed to accomplish On the face ofit the agreement But little more than two years Vietnam itself was concerned theoutcome was total defeat for were the Parisaccords from the outset a sham designed only but other participants in the events have argued that if they're lucky they can hold outa year and the flawed results of Kissinger's was attempting to achieve bymilitary and diplomatic to the measures the Americans brought to bear On the theU S Army on the battlefield possible as late as it term with respect to overallAmerican global objectives But this Cornell Herring George C Johnson CA Presidio McNamara Robert S et al Life and Times ofRobert McNamara L Shadow on the White House Presidents and the Vietnam
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