Negotiations: No Hope

The recent announcement that the United States will increase its commitment in Vietnam to the Korean-war level of 400,000 men by this Spring indicates that the Administration is losing hope of negotiations. Moderate critics of the war, such as Senators Kennedy and Mansfield, were still issuing pleas for stronger diplomatic initiatives last week, but because of the increasingly polarized views on either side, no grounds exist for any satisfactory agreement.

Hanoi stated their demands explicitly last April in a four point proposal. The first two points call for U.S. recognition of Vietnamese independence and the withdrawal of all foreign troops. Secretary of State Rusk has agreed, with the provision that Hanoi withdraw her regular forces from the South. Thirdly, Hanoi wants "peaceful reunification without foreign interference." Again Rusk has agreed, although one suspects that he holds certain reservations. In essence, these three proposals merely reiterate the Geneva accords of 1954, to which the United States still pays lip-service.

The fourth point involves "the settlement of the internal affairs of South Vietnam by the South Vietnamese people alone, in accordance with the program of the Viet Cong's political representation, the National Liberation Front." Ever since April, American observers have puzzled over the term "in accordance with." Does it mean a complete Communist take-over, or a coalition with the NLF represented, or perhaps merely social reform? According to the New York Times of Sept. 5, "the United States suspects that this [fourth point] means a coalition including Communists, probably one dominated by them."

Also, last July a high Viet Cong agent told Prof. Robert Brown of Farleigh Dickinson College that the NLF would agree to district by district elections to form a coalition government. The offer was later made officially to Saigon. On August 28, the South Vietnamese chief of state, Major General Van Thieu, replied: "The terms neutrality and democratic coalition, a pet phrase of Communists everywhere, reveal more clearly their real evil intentions and their desperate condition."

The exchange points out a central problem of American negotiators. As General Maxwell Taylor, former American Ambassador to Saigon, explained in a television interview last August, Saigon military leaders "would never tolerate a Government that was caught surreptitiously or overtly negotiating with the Viet Cong or Hanoi." Consequently, American policy has hardened. On October 19, Senator Mansfield confirmed and criticized a leak from "high government officials" reported by UPI which stated that the U.S. would never "let the Commies get a toehold" in South Vietnam.

The United States is clearly following its policy of containment and will never permit the Communists any "toehold" beneath the present division line. The Communists, on the other hand, have been fighting for over twenty years to gain what they believe is their share of political representation in Vietnam. All talk of negotiation becomes meaningless unless either side concedes on this key issue.

Meanwhile, high-level opinion in Washington is coming to center on the forecasts of Ambassador Lodge, who predicted last August that "once the Viet Cong and Hanoi have been convinced that their attempt at aggression is doomed to failure, they will stop... there's going to be a silence." Proponents of this view cite the revolutions in Greece, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaya, which all fizzled out. Critics, however, observe two new and significant factors: the Vietnamese Communists have broad popular support as well as a twenty year head start.

The Communists believe we will soon give up; that Vietnam will become a political issue, like Korea, and that our next President will promise to bring the boys home. The Chinese tell Hanoi that our soldiers want only to return to their soda fountains and that they will soon fade in the intense jungle heat. Also, the anti-war demonstrations remind them of the French sentiment in 1954 which gave them half the country.

Thus both sides are basing their present policies on the assumption that the other side will pull out within two to three years. The Times reported Tuesday that "as the Americans threw more chips on the table, so did the North Vietnamese. The enemy is not weaker than in July, but stronger." Both sides stand determined, and there lies the danger.