by Thomas E. McNamara
On my first foreign service posting in Paris, my boss, Ambassador Charles Bohlen, said that the diplomatic service required many skills, but the most important one was “being there when something happens.” Later, working on Vietnam in the embassy’s political section, I learned that Bohlen’s Dictum was true.
Johnson’s Peace Talks Overture
It was mid-April 1968, shortly after President Lyndon Johnson lost the New Hampshire primary and two weeks after his March 31st speech offering North Vietnam a limited bombing halt, if Hanoi would agree to open peace talks. He ended that speech dramatically, by withdrawing as a candidate for the presidency. The Tet offensive made a bombing halt a logical next step in any policy change. But Johnson’s withdrawal had a powerful impact by reinforcing his offer’s credibility.
Among the French, including de Gaulle, LBJ was not highly regarded. Yet, they saw his withdrawal as proof that his was a sincere effort to end the war. Foreign Minister Couve de Murville endorsed it in private and public statements. The French contacted Hanoi and called in Mai Van Bo, Hanoi’s “délégué general” who headed Hanoi’s “Délégation Générale” in Paris,* urging Hanoi not to ignore it or turn it down. They believed Hanoi might underrate the importance of Johnson’s action because elections in North Vietnam did not indicate position or power. Elections were elements in larger political stage-plays that maintained public order and political engagement. We did the same as the French and awaited Hanoi’s response.
Hanoi was a cautious, disciplined and secretive regime. Officials never deviated from the party line in public or private. Hence, when questioned about peace talks, they had one response, they “might undertake” talks. In French the “might undertake” was one word, entreprendrait, a conditional mood — a “maybe.” Never did they hint what might change the verb to “will.”
Might They, or Will They?
Then, in a strange twist, Hanoi’s first response to LBJ came via an obscure reporter for a small radio network in an unexpected interview. Stranger still, an obscure junior officer was the first US official to get Hanoi’s response to Johnson’s offer.
About two weeks after Johnson’s address, as I was about to go home, quite late, from the embassy, the phone rang. Bernie Redmont of Westinghouse Radio Network was calling John Gunther Dean, my immediate boss, who was at the Quai d’Orsay (Foreign Ministry). I said John would return the call, but Bernie had a deadline to record his story for transmittal to New York in time for the evening news.
Radio and TV reporters recorded stories, in those days, in a studio off the Champs-Élysées. A separate transmitter forwarded them to the radio/TV company in the US. Bernie had an appointment at a set time, and he could not lose his place in line. I offered to help him, and he gave me the background and then read directly from his meeting notes. I heard the pages turn as he spoke and was taking my near-verbatim, shorthand notes also.
Bernie had asked for an interview with Mai Van Bo and for six months got the brush-off. That afternoon he got a phone call saying he had the interview, if he could come in two hours. He went and now needed advice because he mainly covered European issues, not Vietnam. He was focused on rebellious university students and trade unions, then on the verge of the famous May 1968 riots in France.
Early on Bo said, “We will open talks.” I didn’t interrupt Bernie just then. Further on, Bo said the same sentence again, and this time I stopped Bernie. He said Bo had put special emphasis on that sentence. I asked if Bo had said it again. Bernie replied yes, he said it once more at the door as Bernie left. It was in French and translated into English by the interpreter. I pressed him hard on whether they said ‘will’ and not ‘would.” He was sure it was “will.”
I said: “Bernie, that’s your lead” — journalists’ term for the central point of a story. I explained the grammatical context, Johnson’s offer, and Hanoi’s silence. I clarified several other parts that helped him understand nuances and detail. Off he went to record. I quickly wrote and edited a very restricted [i.e., NODIS/Secret/Flash] telegram to Washington.
Telling Washington, They Will
An hour later, John came back with “important information to work on.” Fortunately, we had a great relationship, and he listened impatiently at his desk to my insubordinate insistence that I had a higher priority. I left him my draft telegram and walked out to my desk. In a minute, he yelled, “Get back in here!” He asked: “You’re sure you got it right?” I read to him from my shorthand notes. He called Bernie but got no answer. We later learned Bernie had already filed his story.
We sent my cable immediately because it was still afternoon in Washington, and we did not want the Department to get the news first from the press. I admired John for authorizing that cable, which was bound to have a big impact in Washington – and it did, we later learned. He had no way to check its accuracy until the next morning. It was based entirely on a new, inexperienced junior officer and a phone call with a journalist who knew little about Vietnam. He would have been justified in holding it until the next day. Four days later, Ambassador Bill Sullivan in Laos reported that Hanoi’s French language newscast had also changed the tense of the verb to “entreprendrat” – “will undertake.”
Years later, when Bernie Redmont was with CBS in Moscow, we reminisced a bit. Neither of us could understand why Mai Van Bo decided to pass his message via a little-known radio (not TV) network to someone he had never met before. We speculated that Mai Van Bo also had a “deadline” to meet, and Bernie, like me, happened to answer the phone.
Thus, Bohlen’s Dictum was twice proven correct for diplomats and journalists.
*These were France’s quasi-diplomatic designations for non-sovereign state representatives. Quebec, for example, has had one in Paris since 1965. France recognized South Vietnam, which had an embassy in Paris. But for political reasons it gave Hanoi “General Delegation” status.
Thomas E. McNamara has served as Assistant Secretary of State for political-military affairs, Ambassador to Colombia, Ambassador at Large for counterterrorism, and Special Assistant to President George H.W. Bush.