The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
133
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
Ang Cheng Guan∗
The paper re-constructs the decision-making of both the American
and the communist side in their mutual search for a negotiated settlement
to the Vietnam conflict after the 1968 Tet Offensive. Most of the writings
on the Vietnam War negotiations tend to gloss over this period. Although a
settlement was not reached by the end of the Johnson administration, the
negotiation process is still worthy of historical attention for an overall
understanding of the search for peace which began with the secret
diplomacy of the Vietnam War in the early 1960s. This paper places the
thinking and the decisions of the communist side - Hanoi, Moscow and
Beijing alongside the better known American side in a single narrative
and
shows
why
it
was
so
difficult
to
achieve
a negotiated
settlement during the last months of the Johnson administration. Readers
who are familiar with the series of secret negotiations prior to the Tet
Offensive and the negotiations led by Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho
from 1969 will feel a compelling sense of familiarity in this account.
Key words: Averell Harriman, Johnson, Anatoly Dobrynin, Clark
Clifford, Xuan Thuy, Le Duc Tho, Tet Offensive,
Sino-Vietnam relations, cessation of bombing, peace
negotiations
∗
Ang Cheng Guan is Associate Professor and Head, Humanities and Social Studies
Education, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore. He is presently working on a book entitled "The International History of the
Vietnam War 1967-1975: The Final Denouement" to be published by Frank Cass when
completed.
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Introduction
This paper attempts to re-construct the negotiations between the
Johnson Administration and Hanoi during a critical period of the Vietnam
War – between 31 March 1968 and 5 November 1968, a fairly short
period of about eight months, which in the view of this writer, has not
received as much scholarly attention compared to the subsequent peace
negotiations which took place during the Nixon Administration.
Most of the best known studies on Johnson’s conduct of the Vietnam
War concentrate on his decision to Americanize the war in 1965, his
management of the war that culminated in the 1968 Tet Offensive, which
was a major turning point in the war and his 31 March 1968 decision not
to run for re-election as president.1 Given the significance of the Tet
Offensive, it is not surprising that there has also been a lot scholarly
attention, focused on the intelligence, the decision-making and events
surrounding the Tet Offensive, the Offensive itself and its repercussions
on American domestic politics during the Johnson administration.
Although most of the key primary documents of the Johnson
administration have been published and have been available for some
time, there has not been that much interest in Johnson’s decision-making
with regards to the peace negotiations in the period after his 31 March
1
See for examples, Herbert Y. Schandler, The Unmasking of a President: Lyndon
Johnson and Vietnam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977); Larry Berman,
Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam (New York: W.W. Norton and
Company, 1989); Brian Van Demark, Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the
Escalation of the Vietnam War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); George C.
Herring, LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1994).
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
135
1968 announcement to 20 January 1969 when Nixon (elected on 5
November 1968) was sworn in as the new president.2 It was in those
months that the first public steps were taken by both sides to seriously
negotiate a peace settlement.
Most writings on the Vietnam peace negotiations however overlook
this period and focus on the Nixon-Kissinger phase. For example, the
recent study of the peace negotiations by Pierre Asselin treated the talks
during the Johnson period as insignificant.3 But in the view of this author,
the last ten months of Johnson’s tenure certainly merit closer study on its
own terms as it was in those months that the framework of the peace
negotiations was finally established, the fruition of the process which
started with the secret contacts in 1965. Throughout the secret
negotiations of 1966-67, Hanoi was basically demanding that the
Americans must first capitulate. 4 Participating in the US-Vietnamese
dialogue led by Robert McNamara on the missed opportunities of the
Vietnam War, Chester Cooper (who had served in the CIA, National
Security Council and the Department of State) opined that “in the last
analysis, there was nothing that we could propose until 1968 that would
elicit a positive, constructive response in respect to negotiations…” 5
Indeed, it is now common knowledge that the breakthrough came only
2
The selections in Lloyd C. Gardner & Ted Gittinger (ed)., The Search for Peace in
Vietnam 1964-1968 (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2004 hardly dealt
with this period.
3
See Pierre Asselin, A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris
Agreement (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
4
Ang Cheng Guan, “The Vietnam War from Both Sides: Revisiting ‘Marigold’,
‘Sunflower’ and Pennsylvania’ in War & Society, Volume 23, No. 2, November 2005.
5
Robert S. McNamara, Arguments Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam
Tragedy (New York: Public Affairs, 1999), 290.
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when both sides, in their own ways, suffered significant defeats at the
1968 Tet Offensive - the US politically and the Vietnamese communists
militarily.
On the communist side, there is even less written about this period
although this is the first time since the war began that the Vietnamese
communists agreed to negotiate directly with the Americans. The failure
of the January 1968 Tet Offensive to achieve its objective led to a series
of prolonged internal debate within the North Vietnamese communist
leadership (and with its Chinese and Soviet patrons) about the next best
course of action. This was apparently a very sensitive and critical period
for the communists particularly in Vietnam (and also in China because of
the on-going Cultural Revolution). Despite the fact that in the last one and
half decade, we know much more about the strategy and decision-making
of the communist side than ever before, the historiography of the
communist side of the Vietnam War remains limited.6 Information on
1967 and 1968 is even harder to come by. The works of Ilya Gaiduk and
Qiang Zhai gloss through this period. The communist documents
published by the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) for this
period are also conspicuously scanty.7
This paper thus attempts to revisit those eight months by putting the
actions, responses and counter-responses of all the key players in the war
6
See Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2001); Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950-1975 (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2000); Ilya Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the
Vietnam War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996); Robert Brigham, Guerilla Diplomacy: The
NLF’s Foreign Relations and the Vietnam War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999).
7
See http://www.CWIHP.org
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
137
into a single narrative. In the view of this author, by integrating the
findings of the communist and non-communist sides of the war, and
giving both sides equal treatment on the basis of existing sources, it is
hoped that we would be able to re-construct a more balanced and coherent
account of the peace negotiations of the Vietnam War during the last year
of the Johnson Administration.
This essay can also serve as a useful case study to illustrate some of
the key theories on the termination of war.8 Through the simultaneous
re-construction of events and the interactions from both sides, hopefully
we can further our understanding as to why Johnson was unable to
achieve a negotiated settlement before the end of his term of office, why
Averell Harriman, his chief negotiator, failed in 1968 whereas Henry
Kissinger was successful in negotiating the Paris Peace Agreement in
1973.
The Decision to Negotiate
Washington and Moscow
We begin on 31 March 1968 as it marked the turning point in US
strategy in the Vietnam War. One of the most important public statements
about US strategy in Vietnam, relating it with remarkable candour to
America’s global difficulties was Johnson’s address of 31 March 1968. As
Robert M. Collins showed in his study, “the decision to halt the escalation
8
See for examples, Michael Handel, “The Problem of War Termination” in Michael
Handel, War, Strategy and Intelligence (London: Frank Cass, 1989); Fred Charles Ikle,
Every War must End (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1991); Joseph A.
Engelbregcht Jr., “War Termination: Why Does a State Decide to Stop Fighting”, PhD
thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, UMI Dissertation, 1992;
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of the war was as much economic as it was political or military”.9
In addition to announcing the scaling back of the bombing of North
Vietnam and offering to enter into negotiations, Johnson indicated the
close relationship between the ability to deploy more American troops to
Vietnam and the gravity of the United States economic and financial
difficulty. The cost of the war was now weighing heavily on the US
budget, leading to a deficit which could only be remedied by a tax
surcharge - a measure strongly opposed by Congress. In the absence of a
reduction of the deficit, and in a situation where the American balance of
payments was also in trouble, any decision to increase troop levels into
Vietnam, as requested by General Westmoreland, would have disastrous
consequences for the global position of the United States. In the words of
Arthur Okun, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the
Johnson Administration, “There’s no dimension of the American economy
in the last three-and-half years which hasn’t been touched by Vietnam;
Vietnam changed the entire budget posture. It took all the elbow room
away”.10
International pressure on the value of the dollar, in terms of the dollar
price of gold in the world marker, had been growing since the devaluation
of sterling in November 1967. It reached a peak in mid-March 1968,
when world central bankers met in Washington to decouple the private
gold market from the Bretton Woods arrangements between central banks,
9
Robert. M .Collins, “The Economic Crisis of 1968 and the Waning of the “American
Century” in The American Historical Review, 101 no. 2, (April 1996): 396-422, 417.
10
Quoted in Robert. M .Collins, “The Economic Crisis of 1968 and the Waning of the
“American Century” in The American Historical Review, 101 no.2 (April 1996): 401.
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
139
which depended on the price of gold remaining fixed at $35 per ounce. By
the end of March, Johnson knew that the immediate gold crisis had been
resolved, and that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had finally
agreed to the creation of ‘special drawing rights’ which would ease
pressure on the dollar as the world’s principal reserve currency. But the
condition of a return to stability was, in effect, an end to the escalation of
the war in Vietnam. Johnson had no choice but to limit further troop
commitment to a level of 13, 500 instead of the 206,000 requested. It
meant, too, an end to the search-and-destroy strategy in Vietnam.
Thus after months of debate over the course of policy in Vietnam
post-Tet Offensive, it was finally decided that American public
opinion/domestic politics/financial situation left Johnson with no option
but to disengage from Vietnam even if it was true that the American
military was in fact winning the war at this stage.
Given the bad experiences of the previous two years or more trying to
negotiate with Hanoi, it was felt that Washington would require the
assistance of Moscow as go-between. As Ambassador at Large, Averell
Harriman, put it “considering the suspicions that exist between Hanoi and
Washington, we need some outside influence to assist in reaching a
settlement, and there is no other that could be as effective as the Soviet
Union”.11 Johnson therefore met with Soviet Ambassador to the US,
Anatoly Dobrynin on 31 March, just two hours before his speech and told
11
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume VI, Vietnam,
January-August 1968 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2002), Document
164: Memorandum from the Ambassador at Large (Harriman) to Secretary of State Rusk,
Washington, 29 March 1968. Subsequent documents are all from this Volume.
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him that given the tactical situation on the ground, he could not order a
total cessation of bombing without endangering the lives of American
soldiers. Comparing the American situation with that of the Russian
soldiers confronting the approaching German forces during World War
Two, he reminded Dobrynin that it was the responsibility of the Soviet
Union as co-chairman of the 1954 Geneva Conference as well as a major
arms supplier to North Vietnam to broker a peace. China, according to
Johnson, was getting “cocky” and “chesty”. He was thus greatly
concerned about Southeast Asia as a whole and not only Vietnam. A wider
war would only benefit Beijing and would not be in the interests of both
Washington and Moscow.
Dobrynin raised a number of questions regarding the bombing pause
and was told that bombing would cease above the 20th parallel and that
there was no firm limit to the period of the bombing halt, to which
Dobrynin replied said that it was good and that it was better not to have to
hurry Hanoi. 12 Johnson later told Senator William Fulbright that
Dobrynin did not say what he would do but was very courteous and
seemed to be very pleased and impressed with what he had been told.13
Having met Dobrynin, President Johnson addressed the country, the
substance of which is well-known and only the portion regarding the
bombing halt need to be repeated here. In his speech, Johnson said that he
had ordered American aircraft and naval vessels to stop all bombardment
12
Document 168: Memorandum for the Record, 31 March 1968; also see, Anatoly
Dobrynin, In Confidence (New York: Random House, 1995), 175-179.
13
Document 171: Telephone Conversation between President Johnson and Senator J.
William Fulbright, Washington, 1 April 1968.
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
141
of North Vietnam, “except in the area north of the demilitarized zone
where the continuing enemy buildup directly threatens Allied forward
positions and where the movements of their troops and supplies are
clearly related to that threat….”14
But soon after the 31 March speech, American planes bombed the
vicinity near Thanh Hoa, 205 miles north of the DMZ, 81 miles from
Hanoi and below the 20th parallel. Thanh Hoa was believed to be a major
transit point for communist troops and supplies moving into South
Vietnam and Laos, and which also had a recently activated airfield. The
bombing immediately led to accusations that the Johnson administration
had once again reneged on its promise. Apparently, Johnson’s
announcement on the limits of American bombing was not sufficiently
precise. In a 2 April 1968 memorandum to the President, Averell
Harriman, (newly appointed as the President’s personal representative to
the peace talks) described the Thanh Hoa bombing as a “disastrous trend”
and urged the President to issue an immediate clarification of the bombing
limits.15 The administration subsequently published a statement on 3 April
which clarified that the 20th parallel was the “restriction line”.
Hanoi
Despite the bombing controversy, to the surprise of everyone, Hanoi
responded positively to Johnson’s 31 March speech. Secretary of Defence
Clark Clifford commented that Hanoi’s response was beyond the Senate’s
14
Document 169: Editorial Note; Also, see for example, James Mayall & Cornelia
Navari (ed.), The End of the Post-War Era: Documents on Great Power Relations
1968-1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 88-91.
15
Document 174: Notes of Telephone Conversation, Washington, 2 April 1968.
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furthest dreams.16 The Radio Hanoi broadcast on the morning of 3 April
1968, for the first time since the war, stated that despite the fact that the
US had not unconditionally stopped the bombing, it was ready to “appoint
its representative to contact the US representative with a view to
determining with the American side the unconditional cessation of the
bombing raids and all other acts of war against the DRV (Democratic
Republic of Vietnam or North Vietnam) so that talks may start”.17
Why did Hanoi respond the way it did? US intelligence at the time
suggested that it could be a tactical move on the part of the communists to
force a complete bombing halt by influencing US public opinion and
pre-empting an American intensification of the war; to create divisions
between Washington and Saigon and undermining South Vietnamese
morale; and communist losses in the Tet Offensive leading to a struggle
amongst the top leadership.18
Apparently both Beijing and Hanoi were aware of the link between
the Vietnam War and the global and financial crisis facing the United
States. An article in the 26 January 1968 issue of Peking Review
commented that “from the financial and economic point of view the war
of aggression against Vietnam is like a bottomless pit”. It added that
“what warrants particular attention is the fact that the position of the
dollar has become precarious since the devaluation of the pound. The
continuation of the war of aggression against Vietnam will only speed up
the deterioration of US finance and its international payments. This is
16
17
18
Document 178: Notes of Meeting, Washington, 3 April 1968.
Document 175: Editorial Note.
Document 175: Editorial Note.
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
143
another contradiction which US imperialism, obstinately bent on
expanding the war of aggression, can never resolve”.19 In Hanoi, defence
minister Vo Nguyen Giap also revealed his awareness of this dimension of
the war when he made reference to the “growing budget deficit, troubles
with the Congress, with the allies, and with the dollar” in his article of
mid-September 1967. Giap also noted that the US was over-stretched and
that although its “economic and military potential is great, it is obvious
that the more he intensifies the war of aggression in Vietnam, the more
weakened he becomes and the more difficulties he encounters….”20
Bui Tin has since revealed that Johnson’s 31 March announcement,
coupled with the earlier resignation of Secretary of Defence Robert S.
McNamara as well as the recommendation of the “Wise Old Men” that
the US should end the war, convinced certain influential quarters of
the
Hanoi leadership that the US were indeed preparing to withdraw from
Vietnam. He recalled that the North Vietnamese leadership discussed
these developments and concluded that the US must be in great
difficulty.21 According to Hoang Van Hoan in his memoir, the decision to
talk with the Americans was not unanimous. Le Duan decided on it and
Ho Chi Minh was not consulted. The latter, who had his reservations, was
then recuperating in Beijing on 3 April 1968 when he heard the news that
Hanoi had agreed to Johnson’s call for talks.22 On 28 April, the Chinese
19
Peking Review, 26 (January 1968): 18-19. See also Peking Review, 5 (April 1968), for
a short but penetrating analysis of the dollar crisis as a whole.
20
Vo Nguyen Giap. Big Victory, Great Task (New York: Pall Mall, 1968),90, 97.
21
Bui Tin, From Enemy to Friend: A North Vietnamese Perspective on the War
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2002), 65-66.
22
Hoang Van Hoan, A Drop in the Ocean, (Beijing Foreign Languages Press, 1988),
332-334. Hoang Van Hoan was a senior North Vietnamese leader who defected to China
in 1979.
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reported a speech by Truong Chinh, member of the Politburo and
Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly which did
not mention the peace talks but emphasized the need to continue with the
protracted struggle. 23 This speech which was not reported by the
Vietnamese media would appear to give some credence to Hoang Van
Hoan’s revelation that the decision to enter into talks was controversial. It
would also explain why after responding positively to Johnson’s offer,
Hanoi continued to drag its feet until May.
The Nhan Dan and Quan Doi Nhan Dan editorials of 4 April
expressed support for the decision. The editorials noted that the decision
to meet the Americans “conformed to the aspirations of the world people,
who cherished independence, peace and justice, and would surely receive
widespread approval and support in the world”. The editorials also
underscored the fact that the Vietnamese communists were determined to
fight till total victory was theirs. 24 North Vietnamese prime minister
Pham Van Dong told the Japanese writer Seicho Matsumoto in an
interview with on 6 April that Hanoi had already appointed its
representative to meet the Americans.25 Hanoi attempted to exploit the
split within the US in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive to advance its
cause. On 8 April, during a CBS interview, North Vietnam’s foreign
minister Nguyen Duy Trinh appealed to the American people for
support.26 Pham Van Dong also sent a message to the American public
through CBS in which he called upon the American people to join the
23
New China News Agency (NCNA), 28 April 1968, Summary of World
Broadcast(SWB)/FE/2757/B/19
24
Vienam News Agency ( VNA), 4 April 1968, SWB/FE/2739/A3/2-4.
25
Tokyo Television Service, 6 April 1968, SWB/FE/2741/A3/6.
26
VNA, 8 April 1968, SWB/FE/2743/A3/2.
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
145
Vietnamese in the common objective of bringing the war to an end by
demanding that the US withdraw its troops from Vietnam.27
.
Luu Van Loi, in his recollection, explained that Johnson’s
announcement was especially significant as it marked a great change in
American strategy, from intensification of the war to de-escalation, from
refusal of negotiations to acceptance of probing negotiation. Furthermore,
it would be bad for Hanoi’s public image (domestic and international
community) if the leadership rejected Johnson’s offer outright. But it was
also premature to begin negotiations at that time. The Politburo identified
the establishment of preliminary contacts and the insistence on complete
cessation of US bombing of North Vietnam as the top priority. Meanwhile,
secret-probing discussions could be held but there would be no
negotiations on substantive matters until the bombing had stopped.28
The Month-Long Search for a Venue
Washington was unsure whether the 3 April 1968 Hanoi statement was
a genuine peace offer. But in the view of Clark Clifford, based on the
North Vietnam statement, “…we have the right, within the framework of
the President’s offer of Sunday night, to construe this as a reciprocal
gesture on the part of Hanoi, and I would certainly… be ready to
recommend – certainly should (it) appear feasible – that we construe this
as a reciprocal step on the part of Hanoi and now proceed to the second
27
VNA, 8 April 1968, SWB/FE/1743/A3/3.
Luu Van Loi, 50 Years of Vietnamese Diplomacy 1945-1995, Volume 1: 1945-1975,
(Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 2000), 185-188. Luu had been an assistant to North
Vietnam’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1970-1978 and was a member of the North
Vietnamese negotiating team in Paris in 1972-73.
28
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part of the program that the President had in mind”.29
Thus began the long exchange (which lasted till early May) just to
find a mutually acceptable meeting place. Johnson in his 31 March speech
had said that the US would meet with representatives of Hanoi” anywhere,
anytime”, which on hindsight was not a very prudent statement to make.
Washington first proposed Geneva but the North Vietnamese rejected it
because of “unhappy memories” and proposed Phnom Penh (their first
choice), which was less expensive for them. 30 Westmoreland was
skeptical about Phnom Penh as a venue because “many Cambodians are
working with (the) Viet Cong”. 31 Washington subsequently proposed
Vientiane, Rangoon, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur or New Delhi, the last being
the preferred site of the Saigon government.32 Hanoi continued to push
for Phnom Penh and proposed 15 April for a meeting there. As an
alternative, the North Vietnamese suggested meeting in Warsaw on 18
April 1968, which Johnson rejected outright despite the views of
Harriman, the State Department as well as Clark Clifford who assessed
that Warsaw had “a number of advantages over any other place”. But as
Rostow explained, “Warsaw is capital of a communist country – one that
sides openly and actively with North Vietnam. Most of our allies are nor
represented there and might not even have access. Tight local controls
could limit access to friendly powers and to the non-communist press.
Harassment and intimidation of our delegation would not be unlikely”.33
29
Document 177: Notes of Meeting, Washington, 3 April 1968.
Document 185: Notes of Meeting, Washington, 6 April 1968.
31
Document 185: Notes of Meeting, Washington, 6 April 1968.
32
Document 187: Notes of Meeting, Washington, 8 April 1968; Document 189: Notes
of Meeting, Camp David, Maryland, 9 April 1968.
33
Document 191: Memorandum of Conversation between the Ambassador at Large
30
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
147
There were indications that Hanoi preferred an Asian site for the talks.
Washington too felt that it should take place in an Asian capital. U.N.
Secretary General U Thant was enthusiastic about Rangoon but he
gathered from North Vietnam’s representative in Paris, Mai Van Bo, that
Beijing was not supportive of venues such as New Delhi and Rangoon, as
China had poor relations with those governments. Hanoi had agreed to the
talks against Chinese advice and felt that it now had to at least mollify
Beijing. According to U Thant, Zhou Enlai had postponed his visit to
Phnom Penh to show Chinese irritation that Sihanouk had offered Phnom
Penh as a venue for the talks.34
Despite the failure to agree on the venue, on 16 April, Hanoi
announced that it would appoint Minister Xuan Thuy, a former Foreign
Minister and member to the 1961-1962 Geneva Conference on Laos, as
the person who would likely lead the North Vietnamese delegation at the
forthcoming talks. Xuan Thuy was described as “a sophisticated and
urbane person” who strictly adhered to the “Hanoi party line”.35
On 18 April, Washington further suggested Colombo, Tokyo, Kabul,
Kathmandu, Rawalpindi, Rome, Brussels, Helsinki and Vienna which
were all rejected by Hanoi. Meanwhile, the 17 and 18 April issues of New
(Harriman) and President Johnson, Washington, 11 April 1968; Document 195:
Memorandum from the President’s Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson, Washington,
13 April 1968.
34
Document 199: Telegram from the Executive Secretary of the National Security
Council (Smith) to the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) in Hawaii, Washington, 17
April 1968.
35
Document 199: Telegram from the Executive Secretary of the National Security
Council (Smith) to the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) in Hawaii, Washington ,
17 April 1968.
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Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
York Times reported that the UN Secretary General had proposed Paris as
a venue for the talks. U Thant did suggest it during his meeting with Mai
Van Bo although both Hanoi and Washington had till this date not
seriously considered Paris.36 Hanoi was holding out for Warsaw as the
venue until the last week of April when Washington finally made it
categorically clear to the Poles that Warsaw was not acceptable.
Washington now had two remaining capitals in mind: Bucharest and
Paris. It was felt that a third party should propose either one or the other
as “Hanoi will have grave reservations about accepting anything that we
have proposed, even secretly”.37
Why did Washington prefer Bucharest, which was also a communist
capital, over Warsaw? The Johnson administration was of the view that
while Romania (like Poland) was a communist state, Bucharest was
acceptable because a Romanian was currently President of the UN
General Assembly, the Romanian diplomatic record “was accurate and
impartial”, they have been fairly low-key with regards to Vietnam the past
year and Romanian assistance to Hanoi had been minimal. Furthermore,
with no anti-Semitic record, it was felt that Bucharest would be
acceptable to liberal Jewish circles in the US. Last but not least, being the
“most independent of the Eastern European” countries, it would hopefully
be acceptable to Beijing. US intelligence confirmed that the Romanian
government was willing to host the talks. South Vietnam’s president
36
Document 200: Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Laos,
Washington, 18 April 1968.
37
Document 203: Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs (Bundy) to Secretary of State Rusk, Washington, 22 April 1968.
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
149
Nguyen Van Thieu was also agreeable to Bucharest as a last resort.
Johnson’s attitude toward Paris was more ambivalent. While the
capital undoubtedly had good access, infrastructure, communications and
diplomatic representation, “DeGaulle’s vitriolic criticism of the war, the
overwhelmingly hostile French press, and unlimited press access” were
drawbacks. John Gunther Dean, a political officer at the US Embassy in
Paris pointedly asked whether choosing Paris “would be tantamount to
rewarding DeGaulle for his past unfriendly position on Vietnam”.38
On 25 April, Sullivan met the North Vietnamese Charge, Nguyen
Chan, who expressed surprise that Washington had turned down Phnom
Penh and Warsaw. He was however unable to tell when Hanoi would
arrive at a decision.39 We now know that this was because the opening
sequence of the Tet Offensive in January 1968 had failed badly resulting
in heavy losses on the communist side. The Hanoi leadership was acutely
aware that it would not benefit them to negotiate without an unqualified
battlefield victory. The Politburo on 24 April decided to launch the second
phase of the Tet Offensive in early May. Meanwhile, the Nam Bo
Regional Command proceeded to create five new battalions of mobile
Special Forces. An agreement on the place and timing for the talks was
therefore unlikely to be forthcoming till May.
Three days after the decision to launch Tet Offensive Phase II, on 27
38
Document 203: Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and
Pacific Affairs (Bundy) to Secretary of State Rusk, Washington, 22 April 1968.
39
Document 208: Telegram from the Embassy in Laos to the Department of State,
Vientiane, 25 April 1968.
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April 1968, Hanoi informed Washington that its rejection of Phnom Penh
and Warsaw were “without foundation”, and reminded the US side that
President Johnson had said in his 31 March 1968 speech that the US was
“ready to go anywhere”. Despite the fact that the US had made it crystal
clear that it would not accept Warsaw as the venue for the talks, the North
Vietnamese persisted by instructing Do Phat Quang, ambassador
extraordinary and plenipotentiary of North Vietnam to Poland to discuss
the matter with the US Ambassador to Poland on 30 April. Johnson was
convinced that Hanoi was being deliberately unresponsive and was “still
trying to drag us in kicking and screaming to place where clearly we don’t
want to go…”40 Hanoi also accused the US of continuing the naval and
air bombing of North Vietnam from the 17th to the 20th parallels, and
violating their territorial waters and air space.41
Available Vietnamese communist sources do not reveal much about
the internal debates over the choice of capital. It is understandable that
both sides wanted a venue which would at least not disadvantage them.
But given that the Politburo decided on 24 April decided to launch
another round of military offensive, there was clearly a tactical element on
the Vietnamese communist part in delaying an agreement. According to
Clark Clifford, “captured documents did not indicate an enemy moving
toward peace”. General Wheeler informed the President that the
communists were moving men and equipment to the South “quite rapidly”.
40
Document 212: Memorandum of Telephone Conversation Between Secretary of
Defence Clifford and Secretary of State Rusk, Washington, 27 April 1968; Document
213: Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Laos, Washington, 27
April 1968.
41
Document 211: Telegram from the Embassy in Laos to the Department of State,
Vientiane, 27 April 1968.
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
151
US intelligence calculated that enemy infiltration figures for the month of
April reached a new high of 35,000.42
Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker was absolutely correct when he wrote
that, “… the present stalemate in agreeing on a site for negotiations is a
preview of the kind of tactics we may expect from Hanoi, that it is
prolonging the stalemate in order to strength its military posture in South
Vietnam, to continue massive infiltration of men and material, and trying
to get the maximum propaganda advantage out of what it chooses to
picture as our unreasonableness”.43
The Talks in Paris Finally Begins
The North Vietnamese finally agreed on 3 May 1968 to open
discussions in Paris on 10 May 1968 or several days after. Hanoi informed
Washington that Minister Xuan Thuy would be its appointed
representative to “engage in official conversations with the representative
of the USG to determine with the American side the unconditional
cessation of bombing and other American acts of war against the DRV,
and to have subsequently conversations on the problems of interest to the
two sides.” On hearing the news, Johnson remarked to Rostow that he
would rather go to “almost any place than Paris”. Rostow however felt
that the US side was left with no choice but to agree to Paris. Washington
replied positively on the same day.
Also on 3 May, in a telegram to Admiral Sharp (Commander in Chief,
42
Document 222: Notes of Meeting, Washington, 4 May 1968.
Document 218: Telegram from the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State,
Saigon, 2 May 1968.
43
152
Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
Pacific) and General Westmoreland (Commander, Military Assistance
Command, Vietnam) General Wheeler warned of a possible communist
military offensive on the eve of the negotiations in Paris, adding that “a
bloody repulse of some spectacular initiative by NVA/VC forces would
serve to strengthen the US negotiating position”.44
Indeed, the day after Hanoi replied, the Vietnamese communists
launched the second phase of the Tet Offensive (which was to last till 17
August 1968), despite the view of some in the top echelon in Hanoi who
argued that they should return to a protracted war in the South and pay
greater attention to socialist development in North. The initial fighting in
the second phase of the Tet Offensive was considered light and not “very
serious”. However, Secretary of State Dean Rusk anticipated that there
would be heavier fighting as the talks proceeded.45 Between May and
August 1968, the communists attacked thirty-one cities, fifty-eight
districts, thirty airfields and twenty staging bases mainly in Saigon and
Gia Dinh.46
On 7 May, Xuan Thuy stopped in Beijing en-route to Paris. Because
of the Cultural Revolution, Sino-Vietnamese relations had been
deteriorating since mid-1966. Another round of purges had begun in
late-March 1968 which was to last till the end of July 1968, further
strengthening the Lin Biao clique in the Chinese leadership. This would
account for the uncompromising and belligerent attitude of the Chinese
44
Document 211 (Attachment): Telegram from the Embassy in Laos to the Department
of State, Vientiane, 3 May 1968.
45
Document 222: Notes of Meeting, Washington, 4 May 1968.
46
Luu Van Loi, 50 Years of Vietnamese Diplomacy 1945-1995, Volume 1: 1945-1975
(Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 2000), 190.
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
153
throughout this period. The Chinese was of the view that Johnson’s peace
initiative was “a new, big fraud” and had so far not reported Hanoi’s
decision to meet with the Americans.47 The Chinese media had continued
to repeat the slogan that “by persevering in protracted war, the
Vietnamese people would surely drive the US aggressors out of their
country”, a position which the Vietnamese communist leadership had
moved away from since they decided to launch the Tet Offensive. Mao
Zedong refused to meet Xuan Thuy. Xuan Thuy was able to meet Zhou
Enlai briefly. Zhou was critical of Hanoi’s decision to engage in peace
talks describing it as a major tactical and diplomatic mistake. Zhou
believed that the Hanoi leadership had fallen into an American trap.48
There was an indication that in spite of their objection to the talks, the
Chinese were being kept briefed on the development, as can be inferred
from the meeting between Yi Suchi, charge d’affaires of the Embassy of
the Chinese People’s Republic in France and Xuan Thuy on 17 May.49
However, Beijing continued to give support to the Vietnamese
communists by signing two agreements in July 1968 – the annual
economic and technical aid agreement for 1969 and the agreement on
non-refundable economic, technical and military aid to Vietnam for 1969,
although according to the Vietnamese, the aid for 1969 was reduced by
more than 20 per cent compared to that of 1968.50 At the banquet in
Beijing on 10 July in honour of the visiting North Vietnamese economic
delegation, Le Thanh Nghi, in his speech, made the first direct public
reference in China about the on-going peace talks. The NCNA reports of
47
Beijing Home Service, 6 April 1968, SWB/FE/2741/A3/1-3.
New Delhi, 12 May 1968, SWB/FE/2769/A3/9.
49
VNA, 18 May 1968, SWB/FE/2776/A3/10.
50
Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Foreign Ministry White Book on Relations with China,
Hanoi Home Service, 4-6 October 1979, SWB/FE/2813/A3/2.
48
154
Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
the banquet speeches omitted Le’s reference to the talks. The VNA also
omitted the attacks on the Soviet Union in the speech by the Chinese
Vice-premier, Li Xiannian. Meanwhile, the Red Guard violence in South
China in the summer of 1968 had disrupted the railway service between
China and North Vietnam affecting the flow of goods and military
equipment to North Vietnam. The delivery of Soviet arms to North
Vietnam, which came via China, was also affected.51
Chinese objections notwithstanding, the North Vietnamese went ahead
and the first session of the talks was finally convened in Paris on13 May
1968. Before the commencement of the talks, Ho Chi Minh sent a
message to the National Liberation Front in which he described the
Americans as being very obdurate and cunning; on the one hand talking
of peace negotiations, and on the other, stepping up the war. He exhorted
everyone to “unite more closely… fight continuously and on all
battlefields, in order to win yet bigger victories”.52 Ho’s message would
tend to support Hoang Van Hoan’s claim that Ho Chi Minh had some
reservations about entering into talks with the United States at this time.
Hanoi had four objectives at the talks: (a) win international sympathy
and support; (b) divide and isolate the US and its allies; (c) find out the
US game plan; and top most on their agenda, (d) get the US to end the
bombing of the North without conditions. As Luu Van Loi recalled, “a
new war officially began between Vietnam and the US: a war around a
green carpet as bombs were still exploding on the battlefield”.53
51
52
53
Radio Peace and Progress, 2 July 1968, SWB/FE/2813/A3/2.
VNA, 9 May 1968, SWB/FE/2767/A3/2.
Luu Van Loi and Nguyen Anh Vu, Le Duc Tho-Kissinger Negotiations in Paris
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
155
Both sides finally reached procedural agreement for the talks on 11
May 1968. The first substantive meeting was finally scheduled for 13
May 1968 in the International Hall of Hotel Majestic.54 A month on,
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach informed the National
Security Council that the Paris Talks were still in the “propaganda phase”.
He believed that the discussions hinged on the military situation in
Vietnam. Johnson too saw no evidence that the North Vietnamese would
negotiate seriously.55 Nevertheless, he decided to hold off the bombing till
22 May 1968 “against my judgment”. Johnson surmised that Hanoi could
not continue talking indefinitely as they must realize a new US
Administration would take over on 20 January 1969. 56 According to
Averell Harriman and Cyrus Vance, the North Vietnamese were hurting
but continued to persist. They did not expect any new developments on
the part of the North Vietnamese in Paris till after the Democratic
National Convention in late-August 1968.57
At the 27 May 1968 formal meeting in Paris, the North Vietnamese
representative, Xuan Thuy, “almost admitted the presence of troops in the
South” when he declared that “any Vietnamese has the right to fight for
his country in any part of Vietnam”. But when Harriman pressed Xuan
Thuy at the following meeting on 31 May, Thuy categorically denied that
there were North Vietnamese troops in the South. The US negotiating
(Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 1996), p. 16. (Hereafter cited as Luu & Nguyen)
54
Document 229: Information Memorandum from the Executive Secretary of the
National Security Council (Smith) to President Johnson, Washington, 11 May 1968.
55
Document 243: Summary Notes of the 568th Meeting of the National Security Council,
Washington, 22 May 1968.
56
Document 143: Summary Notes of the 568th Meeting of the National Security Council,
Washington, 22 May 1968.
156
Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
team planned to continue pressing Hanoi to admit their military presence
in South Vietnam as well as in Laos but avoid any talks regarding
Cambodia at this stage. Harriman and Vance believed that “private
conversations” (read: private talks) were necessary (although Hanoi had
until now insisted that there would not be any private talks).
The Role of Moscow
While the Chinese strongly disapproved of the peace talks as
described above, Moscow in contrast was most encouraging and
supportive. Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin had assured Washington that
Moscow wanted to see the end of the war in Vietnam.
The American
side believed that Moscow had influence in Hanoi and that the Soviets
could play a constructive role in getting the talks out of the current
impasse.58 British Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart visited Moscow
from 22-24 May 1968 to discuss the Vietnam problem. Stewart, at the
behest of Washington, told the Russians that if the US stopped the
bombing totally, the US would expect Moscow to play its part by cutting
back their military supplies to the Vietnamese communists. Stewart met
Foreign Minister Gromyko and found that Gromyko did not know how
the North Vietnamese planned to negotiate in Paris. Gromyko however
believed that American public opinion would not allow Washington to
escalate the war. Although nothing of substance came out of Stewart’s trip,
the British Foreign Secretary was convinced that it was right “to keep
pegging away at the Russians both in order to keep them, as they would
wish to be, in the picture and because I am sure that they cannot afford
57
Document 253: Notes of Meeting, Washington, 28 May 1968.
Document 240: Telegram from the Embassy in France to the Department of State,
Paris, 20 May 1968.
58
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
157
not to pass on all that I said to Hanoi and Xuan Thuy in Paris”.59
When Harriman met with Valerian Zorin (Soviet Ambassador to
France) on 25 May, Zorin revealed that he had been instructed by
Moscow to keep in contact with Harriman.60 They next met again on 27
May. Harriman again complained about the North Vietnamese taking
advantage of US restraint. Zorin gave the standard defence of the North
Vietnamese position but also suggested that the US side broach the idea of
private talks with the North Vietnamese side. He said that they probably
would not accept the proposal initially but might later on. (Zorin was
subsequently proven right). Harriman noted that Zorin “was again cordial
but dodged any responsibility”. Harriman had apparently come to the
conclusion that Zorin was not receptive to any suggestions that break the
current stalemate in Paris. 61 Cyrus Vance thought that Llewellyn
Thompson (US Ambassador to the Soviet Union) should meet with
Gromyko to shore up Harriman’s meeting with Zorin.
We do not know fully what transpired between the Soviets and the
North Vietnamese. But from the sequence of events described below, we
can be certain that Moscow played a helpful role in nudging the North
Vietnamese. Le Duc Tho (Special Adviser of the North Vietnamese
delegation to the Paris Peace Talks), who had been recalled from South
Vietnam in the midst of the second phase of the Tet Offensive, to be
59
Document 246 Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in France,
Washington, 24 May 1968.
60
Document 247: Telegram from the Embassy in France to the Department of State,
Paris, 25 May 1968.
61
Document 252: Telegram from the Embassy in France to the Department of State,
Paris, 27 May 1968.
158
Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
adviser to Xuan Thuy, was in Moscow (en route to Paris) where he met
Kosygin on 2 June. Unfortunately, we still do not know what transpired
during that meeting. But on 3 June 1968, North Vietnam’s Foreign
Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh directed the Vietnamese negotiators to
“continue the fruitful public struggle while preparing for starting, at a
propitious moment, behind-the-scenes talks concurrently with the public
talks.” “Behind-the-scenes talks”, Trinh explained,” are different from the
US secret talks. Trinh cautioned the negotiators not to be tricked by the
US deploying “behind-the-scenes talks to deceive public opinion and to
create illusion among people.”62 On 15 June 1968, Hanoi further clarified
that the objective of the private contacts was for ‘probing purposes’ and
‘not yet for bargaining’.63
After his meeting with Le Duc Tho, Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin
subsequently wrote a letter to President Johnson on 5 June which merits
attention.
64
Kosygin’s letter reiterated the need for a “full and
unconditional cessation by the United States of bombardments and other
acts of war against the DRV”. He told Johnson that Moscow had grounds
to believe that a full cessation of the bombing could promote the desired
breakthrough and produce prospects for a peaceful settlement. Kosygin
also informed Johnson that they had, in accordance to Harriman’s request
for Soviet assistance, persuaded the North Vietnamese representative of
62
Luu & Nguyen, 19.
Luu & Nguyen, 19.
64
Document 262: Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to
President Johnson, Washington, 5 June 1968; See also Ilya Gaiduk, The Soviet Union
and the Vietnam War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), 163-165; For full text see, unofficial
translation faxed to Rostow by Department of State, Declassified Documents Reference
System (DDRS).
63
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
159
the usefulness of unofficial contacts. “We for our part consider that all
forms of contact between the two sides must be used. It is important that
this serve the success of the talks… the forms of contacts by themselves
decide nothing. The decisive significance lies with the essence of the
position which is taken by one side or the other” the letter concluded. The
US side believed that this letter from Kosygin was in the word of
Harriman, “extremely important”, and much time and energy was spent
dissecting its phrasing and content and how best to respond. A positive
and optimistic reading of it could mean that Moscow was willing to assist
with the resolution of the Vietnam conflict, and if that was true, not
seizing the opportunity in the words of Cyrus Vance, “we might lose the
chance and strengthen the hand of Peking in Hanoi”. Harriman strongly
believed that the war could not end without Soviet help. In his words,
“Keep the dialogue going with Kosygin. That will end this war. Our
dialogue with North Vietnam won’t”.
Johnson’s 11 June reply to Kosygin essentially made three points: (a)
the US needed to know the steps Hanoi would take towards de-escalation
of the conflict before it could stop the bombing completely; (b)
Washington was prepared to accept the Soviet Union’s guarantee (if
Moscow was prepared to give it) that there would not be any adverse
military consequences to US and allied forces as a result of the cessation
of bombing; and (c) Washington was appreciative of Soviet assistance of
conveying US interest in unofficial talks with the North Vietnamese
representatives in Paris.65 Kosgyin did not respond to Johnson’s letter but
in early July wrote to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi making the point that
65
Document 269: Letter from President Johnson to Chairman Kosygin, Washington, 11
June 1968.
160
Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
US bombing had to stop before anything else could done, and asked the
Indian Prime Minister to impress this upon Washington.
The meeting between Harriman and, Anatoly Dobrynin (Soviet
ambassador to the United States) on 22 June 1968 is worth highlighting as
it throws some light on Moscow’s thinking with regards to the impasse.
Dobrynin informed Harriman that he had received word that the North
Vietnamese delegates in Paris were now prepared to engage in private
talks with Harriman and Vance although they did not provide a specific
date. In response to Harriman’s explanation as to why the US could not
stop bombing completely without some commitment of restraint from the
North Vietnamese side, Dobrynin kept asking “you have 500,000 troops
in Vietnam, why should you be afraid?” Significantly, he thought that the
two-phase proposal of the US “a good one” and said that Moscow would
be freer to express its opinion to Hanoi when the bombing had completely
stopped. He expressed regret that the Washington did not respond more
positively to Kosygin’s 5 June letter which hinted that Moscow would
provide the assurance which the Americans wanted before stopping the
bombing. The ‘hint’ was supposedly contained in the key sentence in
Kosygin’s letter which said that “my colleagues and I think – and we have
grounds to do so – that complete cessation by the United States of
bombing and other acts of war with respect to the DRV- could contribute
to a breakthrough in the situation and produce prospects for a peaceful
settlement”. In his view, the US side “had missed an opportunity”. This
view of Dobrynin66 was shared by some in the US such as Llewellyn
66
Dobrynin had been reiterating the bombing halt whenever he had the opportunity to
do so. See also Memorndum of Conversation between him and Charles E. Bohlen,
Deputy Under Secretary for Poilitical Affairs, Paris, 31 May 1968, Declassified
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
161
Thompson (US ambassador to the Soviet Union) and Charles Bohlen (US
ambassador to France, 1962-1968).67 Johnson, on the other hand, was not
satisfied with the ‘hint’ and wanted a firm guarantee from Moscow, as he
told Nixon.68 According to Dean Rusk, the Soviets were unable to say
what would happen if the US stopped bombing. In his words, “they sort of
leave general enticements that the atmosphere would be improved, what
might happen and that sort of thing, but even with the capacity of the
Soveit Union and the United States to have the most secret
communications they are unable to tell us what would happen if we
stopped the bombing”.69 Finally, Dobrynin agreed that Moscow, Hanoi
and Washington had one common objective, which was to ensure that
North Vietnam was free from Beijing’s domination, and this could only be
achieved if the conflict was resolved.70
The US side kept the Soviets informed of their private discussions
with the North Vietnamese representatives and they would regularly
review their discussions with Zorin. Zorin would suggest to the
Americans how best to negotiate with the North Vietnamese. For example,
on 28 June, after listening to Vance’s account of his meeting with Ha Van
Lau (Deputy Chief of the North Vietnamese delegation in Paris), Zorin
told him that Hanoi would never accept the demand for reciprocity and
tried to convince Vance that the US could safely stop the bombing, and
Documents Reference System (DDRS).
67
Document 295: Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to
President Johnson, 12 July 1968.
68
Document 310: Notes of Meeting, Washington, 26 July 1968.
69
Document 310: Notes of Meeting, Washington, 26 July 1968.
70
Document 280: Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, 22 June 1968.
162
Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
after that the reciprocity would occur.71 Zorin also advised the Americans
to work out a detailed two-phase plan to end the war.72
Harriman met
Zorin again on 16 July and informed him of “the long talk” between
Vance and Ha Van Lau the night before. Zorin reiterated that if the US
made the bombing halt conditional on other issues, then “everything
would fall through, for this would look like “reciprocity” which the
Vietnamese would not accept”.73 At the 19 July meeting with Vance,
Zorin told him that he had met with Ha Van Lau and that the North
Vietnamese had complained about the US insistence on reaching an
agreement on Phase 2 before Phase 1 took place and also some substantial
matters in Phase 2 such as how to re-establish the DMZ. Zorin repeated
that if the US stopped the bombing, “progress would immediately be
made in the talks”. Zorin also revealed that he would be meeting Lau
again soon to discuss in detail the North Vietnamese view of the US
proposal put forth by Vance on 15 July.74
Cyrus Vance felt that Moscow was trying to be helpful.75 Helpful as
the Soviets might be, Washington was aware of their limitations. As Dean
Rusk told Nixon, “we do think the Soviets have been discussing these
problems with Hanoi. We’re inclined to believe – to the extent they have
71
Document 286: Telegram from the Embassy in France to the Department of State,
Paris, 28 June 1968.
72
Phase 1 (Stop the bombing); Phase 2 (‘consequential actions’ which both sides agreed
to undertake). See Ang Cheng Guan, The Vietnam War from Both Sides: Revisiting
‘Marigold’, ‘Sunflower’ and ‘Pennsylvania’ in War & Society, vol 23, no. 2, (November
2005) for a detailed explanation. During the secret talks in 1967, it was termed Phase APhase B.
73
Document 300: Memorandum of Conversation, Paris, 16 July 1968.
74
Document 305: Telegram from the Embassy in France to the Department of State,
Paris, 21 July 1968.
75
Document 301: Memorandum for the Record, Washington, 17 July 1968.
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
163
influence to say to Hanoi – at least try to be serious about this. But we
don’t expect Moscow to go out advance of Hanoi, and even in a
somewhat public position because I think they are nervous about just
pushing Hanoi, holding it in the arms of Peking among other things”.76
Enter Le Duc Tho
The second phase of the Tet Offensive (4 May-17 August 1968) again
failed to achieve the elusive clear-victory that the Vietnamese communists
hoped.
This led to the resurgence of the policy debate between two
groups in the Hanoi leadership. One group (represented by Le Duan and
his followers) supported the “fight-and-negotiate” strategy. They believed
that in order for the “fight-and-negotiate” strategy to succeed, the fighting
must be sustained and intensified to make an impact on the negotiation.
The other group (which included Truong Chinh and Hoang Van Hoan)
was of the view that, given the heavy losses already incurred, a return to
the “protracted war” strategy was the more appropriate choice. The most
notable effort from this camp was a speech made by Truong Chinh on 5
May 1968 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Karl
Marx. The speech was said to have generated much heated debate but was
only published on 23 August 1968, almost four months after it was
delivered. 77 However, it would appear that Le Duan and those who
76
Document 310: Notes of Meeting, Washington, 26 July 1968.
Hanoi Home Service, 23 August 1968, SWB/FE/2857/B/1-4; SWB/FE/2899/A3/4. The
speech was subsequently broadcast in five instalments by Hanoi radio: See Hanoi Home
Service, 16 September 1968, SWB/FE/2901/C/1-9, 17 September 1968,
SWB/FE/2902/C/1-8, 18 September 1968, SWB/FE/2903/C/1-8, 19 September 1968,
SWB/FE/2904/C/1-9 and 20 September 1968, SWB/FE/2905/C/1-13.
77
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Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
shared his view had the upper hand in determining policies. 78 The
Politburo in August decided to continue with the military campaign and
launched the third phase of the Tet Offensive on 17 August “to win a
decisive victory”. This phase was to last till 30 September 1968. It is
worth noting that by August 1968, Ho Chi Minh was no longer opposed to
the peace talks. In a message to the Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference on
8 August 1968, he said that the United States must recognize the National
Liberation Front (NLF) and enter into talks with them.79
August was a particularly difficult month for the Vietnamese
communist leadership. The Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia on the night
of 20-21 August. Stuck between Moscow and Beijing, whose support it
badly needed, Hanoi had to be sensitive how it responded to the invasion.
The Vietnamese communists immediately accepted the Soviet explanation
for the invasion whereas the Chinese described the Soviet occupation of
Czechoslovakia as, in the words of Zhou Enlai, “the most barefaced and
most typical specimen of fascist power politics played by the Soviet
revisionist clique of renegades and scabs against its so-called allies”.80
During this period, there was an increase of tension along the
Chinese-Soviet border. The Chinese did not report at all the Vietnamese
support for the Soviet action. The Vietnamese on their part omitted
reporting all Chinese attacks on the Soviet Union. An agreement on the
supply of goods and payments between North Vietnam and China was
signed on 30 September 1968, and both sides continued to profess
78
See Le Duan’s 6 July 1969 missive to the Party Committee and Military Commission
of Tri-Thien in Le Duan, Letters to the South, (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing
House, 1986), 101-115.
79
VNA, 8 August 1968, SWB/FE/2871/A3/1.
80
NCNA, 23 August 1968, SWB/FE/2857/A2/1-2.
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
165
publicly that they were as close as “lips and teeth”. Significantly, both
Hanoi and Beijing were silent on the “Brezhnev Doctrine” enunciated by
Brezhnev (Chairman, Soviet Communist Party) in his address to the
Polish United Workers’ Party Congress on 12 November 1968.
Meanwhile in Paris, Harriman and Vance had been pushing for private
talks with the Vietnamese but Hanoi had so far been coy about this. In
Paris, at the 18th round of the Avenue Kleber meeting on 21 August 1968,
Harriman again proposed meeting with Le Duc Tho and Xuan Thuy
privately.
We would recall that Le Duc Tho had arrived in Paris by early June.
The Department of State’s Intelligence Bureau noted that given Tho’s
“enormous authority”, his presence in Paris had been designed to improve
the international impact of Hanoi’s propaganda and to give it greater
freedom of maneuver.81 From his meeting with Tho on 2 September 1968,
Zorin learnt that Hanoi now believed that they could not achieve
unification by military means, and that it was necessary to consider a
political settlement. But the US must first stop its bombing completely.
Zorin subsequently informed Harriman that Hanoi was ready to talk
seriously about a political settlement. The issue of Saigon’s participation
was problematic but Zorin believed that it was not insurmountable. Zorin
added that if the Democrats hoped to win the US elections, they would
have to change their position on the bombing. Harriman countered that
Hanoi’s continual refusal to give any indication of what would happen
81
IN-418, “Hanoi Politburo Member Le Duc Tho Off to Paris”, 31 May 1968, SECRET,
Intelligence and Vietnam: The Top Secret 1969 State Department Study, National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book Number 121.
166
Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
after the bombing had stopped was unreasonable and appealed to the
Soviets “to use its influence or its ingenuity to find a way to permit a halt
in the bombing and thus the commencement of substantive discussions”.
Zorin promised to report back to Moscow. Harriman recalled that Zorin
was noticeably “forthcoming and unargumentative” than in any previous
talks and took pains to stress the positive aspects of the Paris talks.82
The bombing halt had been since the secret talks of the earlier years
and remained a major obstacle to any breakthrough. The Soviets tried
hard to persuade the Americans. For example, when Soviet Ambassador
Anatoliy Dobrynin met Walt Rostow (Special Assistant to the President)
on 9 September 1968, Dobrynin predicted that with the Democratic
Convention over, phase three of the Tet Offensive might subside. He
asked if there were to be a lull in the military activity, would the US be
willing to stop the bombing. He reiterated the analogy of “a great country
dealing with a small country”. Rostow countered by saying that this was
not a question of generosity but of American and allied lives. Dobrynin
revealed that that the Chinese held an extremely hard line position on the
subject of negotiation whereas Hanoi had shared with Moscow some of
the negotiating positions they would take after a bombing halt, which he
was not at liberty to divulge. But he personally believed that Hanoi would
negotiate seriously. On 13 September, Dobrynin delivered orally a note to
Rostow stating that Moscow was ready to exchange opinions on Vietnam
but on the understanding that it could not negotiate on Hanoi’s behalf. On
82
Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1964-1968, Volume VII, Vietnam:
September 1968-January 1969 (Washington D.C: US Government Printing Office, 2003),
Document 2: Telegram from the Embassy in France to the Department of State, Paris, 3
September 1968. Subsequent documents are from this volume.
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
167
15 September, Johnson wrote to the Soviet leadership stating that he could
not maintain the bombing halt “unless it was very promptly evident to the
American people, and to our allies, that such an action was, indeed, a step
toward peace”.83 This position was not shared by all, for example, both
Harriman and Vance argued that the Soviet Union had the same
commitment to North Vietnam as the US had to South Vietnam, in both
hardware and military personnel. As such, they could not take any
position as long as a sister socialist state was under attack. Also, the East
European countries wanted a settlement, particularly Yugoslavia,
Romania and Poland, Harriman and Vance believed that there would be a
new situation once the US stopped bombing the North.84
The Private Meetings
The first private meeting between Averell Harriman and Le Duc Tho
finally took place on 8 September 1968 at Virty-sur-Seine in Paris. This
was followed by the second on 12 September, the third on 15 September
and the fourth on 20 September. The series of private meetings took place
in the midst of the Tay-Ninh-Binh Long military campaign. During these
meetings, the US tried to coax the North Vietnamese to agree to the
participation of the Saigon government in the substantive talks.
Washington had agreed to the National Liberation Front presence at the
substantial talks. The US side tried to get the Soviets to intercede with the
North Vietnamese regarding Saigon’s representation. On 25 September,
Cyrus Vance once again complained to the Russians that the tea-break
meetings with Le Duc Tho and Xuan Thuy had been “totally
unsatisfactory” as the “DRV side had not budged one inch”.
83
84
Document 9: Editorial Note.
Document 20: Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, 17 September 1968.
168
Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
Minister-Counselor Oberemko assured Vance that he had reported to
Moscow but had not yet received a reply. Vance said that question of
Saigon’s inclusion is not one of reciprocity, but is a question of the
definition of serious talks. Oberemko retorted that it was nevertheless a
condition.85 The Soviet side continued to hold the view that a complete
cessation of the bombardment of North Vietnam would create a turning
point at the meetings in Paris and open possibilities for serious
negotiations.
Harriman was anxious for a fifth meeting but Le Duc Tho was unable
to commit a date, pending further guidance from Hanoi (which Tho
finally received on 3 October 1968). This was because back in Vietnam,
the third phase of the Tet Offensive (17 August-30 September 1968) had
also failed to achieve the desired results. Instead, their losses escalated.86
In the analysis of the Politburo, the initial success of the Tet
Offensive/General
Offensive
.87
complicated changes
General
Uprising
had
undergone
By September 1968, it was obvious that the
Vietnamese communists had to live with the second of the three possible
scenarios that they had sketched out in December 1967. The decisive
victory they had hoped for did not materialise. Although the Americans
did not expand the war during this period, it did not augur well for the
Vietnamese communists because the entire Tet Offensive, which lasted for
the better part of 1968 and which had exhausted their human and material
85
Document 34: Telegram from the Embassy in France to the Department of State, Paris,
25 September 1968.
86
Luu & Nguyen, 190.
87
Vietnam: The Anti-US Resistance War for National Salvation, 1954-197: Military
Events (Springfield,VA: Joint Publications Research Service 80968 ,3 June1982), p.110.
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
169
resources, served only to bring about another stalemate in the military
struggle.
Given the circumstance and mindful of the domestic politics in the US,
on 3 October, Nguyen Duy Trinh directed the North Vietnamese
negotiators to take advantage of the period leading up to the US
presidential election (scheduled on 5 November 1968) to press the US to
de-escalate the war. For once, the Vietnamese negotiators in Paris were
given the green light ‘to act according to the situation’ but adhering to the
following positions: (a) The US must stop the bombing
and all other
acts of war against North Vietnam unconditionally; (b) North Vietnam
would stop shelling the DMZ and respect the DMZ; (c) North Vietnam
would agree to a four-party conference on the condition that Saigon
recognised the NLF and be willing to work towards the setting up of a
coalition government; and (d) North Vietnam was prepared to discuss all
issues with the US. Significantly, the Vietnamese negotiators were given
the discretion to decide which issues were best left to discuss in greater
depth in the second phase of the talks.
At the 24th meeting on 2 October 1968 at Avenue Kleber, Harriman
again broached the possibility of a fifth private meeting. The Vietnamese
position remained unchanged. They refused to discuss any other issue
until the bombing had completely ceased. But soon after receiving
Hanoi’s instructions, Xuan Thuy and Tho were able to give a positive
response to Harriman on 9 October. The fifth private meeting was
eventually held at the residence of the US delegation in Touraine Street,
Sceaux on
170
Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
11 October 1968. It turned out to be a successful meeting and the only
outstanding issues were the timing of the cessation of bombing and the
date and procedure of the talks. Harriman even offered caviar at the end of
it. Luu Van Loi recalled that the Vietnamese delegation had never felt
more at ease.
Just as everyone thought that they have gotten over the initial
obstacles, on 13 October, Le Duc Tho unexpectedly received a directive
from Hanoi which stated that, besides the cessation of the bombing and
fighting, the US must agree to talk directly with the NLF and obtain the
Front’s concurrence for the four-party conference. Furthermore, the
Saigon government must change its negative policy towards the NLF. Tho
was told not to discuss with the Americans the date of the conference.
This new directive from Hanoi threw a spanner in the works because, as
Luu Van Loi put it, “to demand that the US talk with the NLF and that the
Saigon administration change its policies before the start of the four-party
conference was an excessive and impractical demand” and was certain to
break up the negotiations.88
This new instruction confirmed Oberemko’s revelation of the factional
struggles in Hanoi. Between 3 and 13 October 1968, there must have been
an intensive debate amongst the Vietnamese communist leadership over
the appropriate policy to adopt. Unfortunately, we still do not have the full
picture. What we do know is that on 9 October, the Chinese continued to
pressure the Vietnamese communists to break off negotiations with the
US and to sever relations with the Soviet Union as well. On 17 October,
88
Luu & Nguyen, 44-48.
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
171
they even threatened to break ties with the Vietnamese Workers’ Party if
the Vietnamese refused to agree to the Chinese demands.89 Meanwhile in
Washington, Dean Rusk met Dobrynin on 15 October and found him very
keen to get a firm date for the talks. Rusk came away from that meeting
thinking that there might be some Russian help behind the scenes on this
matter.90
Perplexed by the instruction, Le DucTho rushed back to Hanoi on the
morning of 14 October to seek clarification. Le Duc Tho arrived in Hanoi
on or around 16 October and spent the next three days debriefing the
leadership. The Chinese appeared to have retracted their demands/threats.
On 19 October, after twenty-six sessions of the Paris talks, Beijing, for the
first time, took official notice of the meetings. In its report on the Paris
talks, NCNA quoted a number of Western news agencies which were
positive about on-going talks. 91 Sino-Vietnamese differences however
were merely swept under the carpet. On 1 November 1968, the enlarged
20th plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
China pronounced the political demise of Liu Shaoqi and his allies. The
communiqué further described Krushchev and his successors as “a bag of
big renegades and scabs in Marxist Leninist garb”.92 Liu and his allies
89
Vietnam: The Anti-US Resistance War for National Salvation, 1954-1975
(Springfield,VA: Joint Publications Research Service,80968, 3 June1982), p. 110; Chen
Yi and Le Duc Tho, Beijing, 17 October 1968 in 77 Conversations Between Chinese and
Foreign Leaders on the Wars in IndoChina, 1964-1977, Cold War International History
Project, Working Paper Number 22, (May 1998): 138-140.
90
Document 82: Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in France,
Washington, 16 October 1968.
91
See Socialist Republic of Vietnam Foreign Ministry White Book on Relations with
China, Hanoi Home Service, 4-6 October 1979, SWB/FE/6242/A3/1; NCNA, 19 October
1968, SWB/FE/2905/A3/1-2.
92
NCNA, 1 November 1968, SWB/FE/2915/C/1-5.
172
Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
had been in favour of China and the Soviet Union jointly shouldering the
task of world revolution93, and more specifically, Sino-Soviet cooperation
in the Vietnam War. The pronouncement doomed any Vietnamese hope of
reconciliation between the two communist giants. But neither Beijing nor
Hanoi allowed their differences to undo their ties completely. On the
surface relations remained cordial. The Chinese continued to emphasize
that China was “the Vietnamese people’s reliable rear area”. The
Vietnamese communists on their part did not fail to acknowledge and
express their gratitude for Chinese support. Pham Van Dong managed to
get an audience with Mao Zedong on 17 November 1968 which is a fair
indication that Beijing had softened its position somewhat.94 It is worth
recalling that Mao refused to meet with Xuan Thuy on 7 May 1968. We
are still unable to account for Beijing’s change of attitude during this
period.
Meanwhile, after much discussion and debate, on 20 October, Hanoi
issued a new set of instructions which softened the earlier 13 October
rigid position. The two requirements: that the US talks with the NLF and
that the Saigon government changed its policies were no longer “sine qua
non” conditions to any agreement and they could be taken up at a later
stage. The Vietnamese negotiators were also told that that they could
propose a four-party preparatory conference to begin a week or ten days
after the cessation of bombing. They were further advised not to give the
impression to the US that they were anxious for an agreement. “We
93
Urumchi, 9 December 1968, SWB/FE/2967/B/7-9.
Mao Zedong and Pham Van Dong, Beijing, 17 November 1968 in 77 Conversations
Between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in IndoChina, 1964-1977, Cold War
International History Project, Working Paper Number 22, (May 1998): 140-155.
94
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
173
should”, the instructions read, “go step by step, lest the US think that we
accept too easily. Perhaps, at the beginning, we’ll vaguely propose ‘as
early as possible’, then 15 days later agree to the aforesaid timing”.95
According to Kosygin’s letter to Johnson on 25 October, he stated that
the Hanoi leadership had told the Russians the seriousness of their
intentions in the search for mutually acceptable solutions; and that the
Vietnamese side were doing their utmost to put an end to the war in
Vietnam and reach a peaceful settlement on the basis of respect for the
legitimate rights of the Vietnamese people; Kosygin’s view is that any
doubts of the Vietnamese side is without foundation/groundless. In the
words of Walt Rostow, “For the first time, Moscow is committing
themselves about the intent and integrity of Hanoi”.96
Johnson replied on 29 October pointing out that with the bombing halt,
he hope and expected the full weight of the Soviet Union will be thrown
into the balance to bring very quickly a firm, stable peace to Southeast
Asia.97 Johnson wrote again to Kosygin on 31 October expressing his
wish to see Moscow exercise its full responsibilities as co-chairman of the
Geneva Conference of 1962 to bring an early peace to Laos as well as
Vietnam. In his words, “without a full and faithful honoring of the Geneva
Accords of 1962, there cannot be peace in Southeast Asia”.98
95
Luu & Nguyen, 52.
Document 138: Information Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant
(Rostow) to President Johnson, Washington, 28 October 1968.
97
Document 141: Letter from President Johnson to Chairman Kosygin, Washington, 29
October 1968.
98
Document 164: Letter from President Johnson to Chairman Kosygin, Washington, 31
October 1968.
96
174
Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
Meanwhile, while Le Duc Tho was in Hanoi, Xuan Thuy was left with
the responsibility of stalling the anxious Americans till Tho returned.
During the interval, Harriman and Vance met with Xuan Thuy and Ha Van
Lau in an attempt to resolve three issues: (a The North Vietnamese side
wanted the meeting to commence only a week after the cessation of
bombing claiming that they were not able to get the NLF representative to
Paris any earlier; (b) The North Vietnamese insisted that “without
conditions” be written into the agreement; and (c) The North Vietnamese
wanted the meeting to be referred as a “Four Party Conference”. The
wrangling went on till 27 October 1968. On 28 October, Hanoi radio
reported that North Vietnam was ready to accept any condition in return
for a US bombing halt.99 Both sides met again on 30 when agreements on
all points were finally reached.100
At midnight on 30 October, the Vietnamese negotiators were informed
of President Johnson’s decision to announce a halt to the bombing the
following morning. On the evening of 31 October, Johnson unilaterally
halted all bombing of North Vietnam, which also marked the end of the
preliminary phase of the negotiations between the US and North Vietnam.
In the words of Walt Rostow, “All of us know that, with all its
uncertainties, we have the best deal we now can get – vastly better than
any we thought we could get since 1961”.101
99
Document 135: Telephone Conversation Among President Johnson, the President’s
Special Assistant (Rostow) and Secretary of State Rusk, 28 October 1968.
100
Document 157: Situation Report by the Executive Secretary of the Department of
State (Read), Washington, 30 October 1968.
101
Document 131: Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to
President Johnson, Washington, 28 October 1968.
The 1968 Paris Peace Negotiations and the Vietnam War
175
On 5 November 1968, Richard Nixon was elected the new President
of the United States. Nixon promised to end the war and achieve peace
with honour. Johnson spent the remaining two months persuading the
Saigon government to agree to negotiations, albeit unsuccessfully.
Conclusion
By simultaneously
reconstructing
the
developments
and
decision-making particularly of the communist side – Hanoi, Moscow and
Beijing with that of the American side of the story between March 1968
and November 1968, this paper has tried to fill a gap in the history of the
Vietnam War bridging the secret negotiations prior to March 1968 and the
better known negotiations led by Henry Kissinger from 1969. From the
above account, we now know that Washington relied heavily on Moscow
to persuade the North Vietnamese. Moscow played a significant and
constructive role showing great interest in seeing the war peacefully
resolved whereas Beijing opposed the negotiations and only softened
somewhat in the latter part of 1968.102 The North Vietnamese leadership,
despite its dependence on both Moscow and Beijing, however possessed a
very independent mind and did not always share their thoughts with the
Chinese or the Russians nor accept their counsel. As Dobrynin told
Rostow, “Off the record, I wish to tell you that we have had as much
trouble with Hanoi as you have with Saigon. The only difference is that
your troubles take place in public”.103 Washington also had to wait for
Hanoi’s response before it could make its next move. The Vietnamese
102
Document 177: Memorandum of Conversation between Secretary of State Rusk and
the Soviet Ambassador (Dobrynin), Washington, 1 November 1968.
103
Document 218: Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, 13 November 1968,
footnote 6.
176
Tamkang Journal of International Affairs
communist leadership deliberately dragged its feet because they badly
wanted a clear and decisive military victory before commencing any
substantive negotiation. It was only after three failed series of military
offensives that Hanoi finally agreed to seriously negotiate. But by the end
of October, even if the Thieu government had been cooperative, the
Johnson Administration had run out of time. While Johnson was unable to
end the Vietnam War as he had hoped to do during his tenure, it should be
acknowledged that his Administration did all the necessary spadework for
the subsequent and better known peace talks led by Henry Kissinger.