An End to a Beginning?

President Nixon's disclosure on January 25 of secret negotiations and his publication of a version of the October 11 U.S. peace plan have not improved the chances for a negotiated peace in Vietnam. Neither the Saigon government nor the North Vietnamese and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) take Nixon's offer seriously, Nixon has used Hanoi's unwillingness to send a high-ranking delegate to Paris for discussions on the October 11 plan with Dr. Kissinger as an excuse to step up the air war.

Although late in October last year Hanoi had agreed to send Politbureau member Le Duc Tho to Paris for talks on November 20, three days before that date, the North Vietnamese informed Washington that Tho was too ill to come. However, Hanoi's chief delegate to the Paris Talks, Xuan Thuy, was ready for secret talks. Nixon refused to send Kissinger to talk to Thuy who, according to Kissinger, lacks the authority to negotiate on important matters.

On November 17, the same day that Hanoi informed Washington that Tho would not be coming to Paris, two French newspapers, Le Monde and Le Figaro, reported that Tho would not come and that the United States had stationed five aircraft carriers off the Vietnamese coast--more carriers than the U.S. has ever stationed there at any time during its involvement in Vietnam. The presence of so many aircraft carriers must have made Hanoi wonder why, before they had even had a chance to give a reply to the secret U.S. peace plan, Nixon and Kissinger were already threatening them.

In a similar maneuver, before the Doves had had a chance to study the peace plan released on January 25, Henry Kissinger and Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott told newsmen that to oppose the President's plan was to advocate surrender.

Nixon had also stated in his televised speech that Hanoi had deluded the Doves to make the U.S. public believe that Hanoi would separate military from political issues. During secret negotiations in May 1971, Nixon pointed out, the U.S. had pledged to withdraw all troops within six months if Hanoi agreed to release U.S. prisoners of war and to a cease-fire throughout Indochina.

Kissinger told newsmen on January 26 that the North Vietnamese had agreed in principle to a cease-fire, but he neglected to say that Hanoi wanted political agreements to end the war signed at the same time as a cease-fire agreement.

President Nixon, in an interview published in this month's Reader's Digest, suggested that he would prefer to leave political questions for the South Vietnamese to settle after a cease-fire agreement and the completion of the release of U.S. prisoners and of the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Since Nixon actually knew that Hanoi would not accept separation of a cease-fire from political agreement, he reiterated on January 25 a proposal first presented by the U.S. delegation at the Paris Talks on October 2, 1969, to allow an electoral commission composed of all political groups including the PRG to organize elections in South Vietnam. For several years, U.S. officials have refused to discuss the extent of the powers such a commission would have to enforce and implement its decisions. Obviously, Hanoi had clarified that it would not agree to any elections that Thieu could manipulate.

To counter Hanoi's argument on election rigging, Nixon announced on January 25 that President Thieu of the Saigon government had agreed to step down one month before a new presidential election, and that the election itself would take place six months after the U.S. had completed its withdrawal. On January 26, Thieu's foreign minister stated that before there could be elections the PRG troops would have to lay down their arms and accept 'reintegration' into the community.

In the same vein, on February 10 President Nixon acquiesced to Thieu's castigation of Secretary of State Rogers who had told a national gathering of newspaper editors and broadcasters on January 27 that the U.S. would be flexible on the timing of the Thieu resignation and the arrangements for organization of new presidential elections in South Vietnam. Nixon told newsmen, "We are not going to negotiate over the heads of our ally with our enemies to overthrow our ally."

While the U.S. has proposed that elections take place six months after withdrawal of U.S. troops, the Nixon plan of October 11 stipulates that the countries of Indochina will "adopt a foreign policy consistent with the military provisions of the 1954 Geneva accords," and that after a cease-fire is signed "there will be no further infiltration of outside forces into the countries of Indochina."

The military segment of the Geneva Accords of 1954 provided that all outside parties regroup and then totally withdraw their troops prior to elections--which never took place--in South Vietnam. In recent years the North Vietnamese have labeled such withdrawal "mutual," and they have repeatedly stated that the question of withdrawal of non-South Vietnamese troops from South Vietnam must be settled after elections. After the U.S. and its allies withdraw, Hanoi says that all armies would remain intact until after elections when a new government would settle the question of troop disposition.

Nixon's ban on further infiltration is a disguised demand that Hanoi close down the Ho Chi Minh trail. Since Hanoi's troops and their allies would be fully cut off from their lines of supply, the U.S. supported governments--who would presumably retain their supplies of U.S. military aid--would find themselves at a distinct military advantage.

In his book Vietnam: Between Two Truces, Jean Lacouture pointed out that in the mid-1950's after Hanoi had withdrawn its troops and had agreed to end the insurrection by the southern Vietminh, the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem took drastic measures:

In 1955 every opponent had been denounced as a left-over from the "feudal rebels" supported by colonialism. After 1956 every opponent was called a communist.

A tremendous war machine was then set up against the Viet Cong. At first the struggle was conduced by simple means: concentration camps....

Lacouture added that on May 6, 1959, Diem passed a law which after three days gave military tribunals the power to execute anyone accused of being a "coinstigator" of "attempts against the security of the state."

Whereas President Nixon spoke of the need to safeguard the individual rights of the Indochinese in his October 11 plan, his administration was not concerned that the removal of civilians on their own "free will" from northernmost to southernmost South Vietnam--which began in late October--would hinder a positive response from Hanoi to his peace plan. The relocation project grew to impressive dimensions in early January. On January 13 the PRG charged that the Saigon government's plan to relocate one million civilians would create a free-fire-zone in northernmost South Vietnam in which the U.S. could use tactical nuclear weapons. Peking and Hanoi have also expressed concern over relocation.

Another serious problem with the U.S. withdrawal proposal of October 11 is it does not firmly prohibit the reintroduction of American forces into Vietnam or the surrounding area. sAs Secretary Rogers told the editors on January 27, "We have a defense treaty with Thailand, the SEATO treaty, and Thailand is not involved in the war as Cambodia and Laos are. So we would expect that we would, at least for the short run, continue to have some Americans in Thailand. But that doesn't affect the settlement in Indochina..."

In recent days U.S. officials have indicated that to counter the upcoming communist offensive, two aircraft carriers are on their way to the Vietnamese coast, and one squadron of F4 Phantom bombers and two squadrons of B52s are en route to bases in Thailand.

On April 9, 1971, General R. David, deputy commander of the Marine Corps, said that in case U.S. troops in South Vietnam were seriously endangered, Marine units on board ships off the coast of Vietnam would land in thirty minutes, and the Third Division of Marines would arrive by airlift from Okinawa in five hours.

The return of so much airpower to the Indochina battle-field hides the fact that the Nixon Administration does not really fear that Hanoi and the PRG can do much damage to the Thieu regime during Tet, the lunar new year. When questioned about the situation a highly placed official appeared to hope that Hanoi would expend all its energies during Tet on the theory that its whole military apparatus would be destroyed. During the next four years that Hanoi would require to rebuild its forces, the 'force of reason' and a decrease in Russian and Chinese aid would convince Hanoi to negotiate a settlement. The official also doubted that during this year's Tet offensive the village infrastructure of the Thieu regime would topple as it did in 1968.

Whatever happens during the present dry season fighting, it is unlikely that either side will achieve permanent tactical superiority over the other. At present there is no sign that a negotiated settlement is in the offing, but indecisive fighting and continued unwillingness on the part of Hanoi to release U.S. prisoners of war will make an eventual political accord unavoidable.