Did One Side “Blink” and Why Did Each Go to Paris?
by Thomas E. McNamara
On my first diplomatic assignment in the embassy in Paris, I spent most of my time on Vietnam War issues, in which the French were heavily involved. Shortly after President Johnson’s March 1968 address to the nation, the US and North Vietnamese negotiations opened in Paris.
In the first private meetings and press conferences after the talks opened, Le Duc Tho, head of the North Vietnamese delegation, asserted that they came to Paris to talk about “the timing and the manner of the US withdrawal of its forces from Vietnam.” The US delegation heads, Averell Harriman and Cyrus Vance, said they came “to negotiate peace, an end to the war.” After a few weeks of inconclusive talks, Le Duc Tho gave a press conference directly accusing the US of reneging on the agreement to meet in Paris.
My boss, Ambassador Sargent Shriver, recently arrived in Paris, called me in, and said: “Find out about this.” Shriver was briefed on the talks. But he paid little attention to Vietnam and was focused on his new job, ambassador to France. I suspect this issue came up in his introductory calls on ministers and parliamentary leaders, who were interested in the negotiations. He needed a response.
The delegation had all the files, including exchanges about opening talks. When I asked for the files, I was reluctantly given a few cables, which resolved nothing. This hesitancy convinced me there was more to it. My insistence took me to Phil Habib, number three in the delegation, who gave me the entire file.
I read over two dozen telegrams. All messages which addressed the purpose of the talks contained the mantra of the side authoring the message. Hanoi’s cables stressed the phrase “withdrawal of US forces.” Washington’s messages used the phrases “talks to end the war” or “to bring peace to Vietnam.” Each side was specific, repetitive, and in disagreement with the other. Significantly, Hanoi’s last message agreeing to talks in Paris contained Hanoi’s mantra. The last US message replying to it also agreed to talks in Paris. But it did not contain the US mantra. We seemed to have abandoned our position. Hanoi had not.
There was a certain irony in this because Dean Rusk authorized these exchanges and signed off on some of the most important ones. He famously said during the Cuban missile crisis that the US and USSR were “eyeball to eyeball” and “it seems like the other fellow just blinked.” It was hard not to think that the American “fellow just blinked” in this instance.
I did not know how such cables got drafted in 1968. Many messages and the omitted language were cleared with Rusk and National Security Advisor Walt Rostow. The last cable did not mention “peace talks” on purpose. If there were no talks because of this difference, President Johnson’s March 31st speech and his offer to end the bombing if Hanoi entered negotiations would be a dead letter. So, better to get to Paris and dare Hanoi to walk out, than repeat the mantra and not get to Paris.
The stratagem worked. Hanoi never walked out. The language of the final two messages favored Hanoi’s position. But simple logic favored Washington’s because there was no need to negotiate withdrawal with Hanoi; the US could simply withdraw however and whenever it wanted.
Hanoi stonewalled any agreement for years. It was the longest peace negotiation in the history of the United States, maybe in modern diplomacy. Three presidents and their negotiators, Harriman, Vance, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Henry Kissinger spent seven years trying for a compromise, only to fail in the end.
The reason was that Hanoi had its own stratagem. It would talk, but not negotiate, and it did not want to end the war. It also adopted a new post-Tet strategy, which Sun Tzu would have appreciated and supported – hide weakness; get strong; then attack.
The Tet Offensive was a political and psychological victory for Hanoi. But it was also a military defeat for the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong. Hanoi needed time and resources to rebuild its military capabilities. Fighting would continue, but at a much lower level than before, so Hanoi could replenish manpower, weaponry, equipment, and supplies. Most importantly, this meant recruiting and training replacements for its field-level officers, who were decimated by Tet. The North Vietnamese army relied on them for battlefield organization and control. In their order of battle, such officers performed the roles of our army’s noncommissioned officers.
Hanoi knew that American military leaders were calling for 200,000 more troops to continue fighting after Tet. It also knew that the American public was deeply divided, with most looking for a way out of Vietnam. US entry into negotiations after Tet was a psychological turning point for the US, because after talks opened, no one opposed them, and most hoped for near-term peace. Hanoi saw the negotiations differently. Talks were to be the “breather” for them to reorganize and recover from a failed military attempt to overthrow the Saigon government and end the war. Hanoi used the talks to restructure the war, not to end it.
It took seven years for North Vietnam to achieve its goals, but the strategic adjustment it made in having talks ultimately proved successful. An agreement was not signed until 1973, and two years later North Vietnam violated it and conquered the South militarily. Sun Tzu would have been pleased.
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.