An Appeal for Amnesty

DEAR PRESIDENT NIXON,

Your comments on January 31 about granting amnesty to Americans who chose to go abroad rather than fight in Vietnam were of interest in several ways.

I agree with your prefatory observation that opponents of the war should show a more open-minded attitude toward the war's former supporters. On the other hand, I cannot accept your view that the fundamental goal of the antiwar movement was to have the United States "bug out" of South Vietnam and allow "the imposition of a Communist government or a coalition Communist government."

It is true that the peace movement's maximum demand was that the President set a date for the withdrawal of United States forces from South Vietnam, but many war opponents would certainly have been satisfied if a negotiated settlement had come earlier.

Vietnamese political issues have always been the key problem, as you implied during your press conference. The new agreement provides for a "National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord" to organize general elections in the South. I think it may be worthwhile to explore how the National Council evolved during the course of the Paris negotiations.

The major difference between the formula for a National Council and the November, 1969 proposal outlined by Secretary of State William Rogers before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is that the Paris agreement explicitly provides that the South Vietnamese decide for themselves the "procedures and modalities" by which the National Council will hold elections and determine the offices to be contested. By leaving the problem of implementation to the South Vietnamese, the new peace agreement satisfies Hanoi's demand that the United States abstain from any attempt to impose a government in the South. At the same time, the agreement takes into account the UnitedStates's demand that the present Saigon government remain intact at least for the duration of the political settlement.

Why did North Vietnam and the United States not agree to an arrangement for a political settlement earlier? In recent press statements, Henry Cabot Lodge '24, who was United States ambassador to the Paris talks during most of 1969, registered his delight that there has been a negotiated settlement. Ambassador Lodge claimed that at the outset of your first term "Hanoi had no incentive to negotiate seriously." He further argued that "those who say we could have solved it in 1969 should have told us in 1969."

Ambassador Lodge's statements have prompted me to present to you my letters to him during the summer of 1969, to which he responded with identical form letters. On July 31, 1969, Lodge challenged his North Vietnamese counterpart on the issue of who could participate in a coalition government. Lodge said:

"...while professing to support self-determination for the Vietnamese people, your side assumes the right to prejudge the outcome of elections and attempts to limit the participation in the political process to those whose qualifications would be arbitrarily decided by our side alone..."

As you can see from my letter to Lodge of August 4, the North Vietnamese delegate, Xuan Thuy, responded to Lodge's challenge by modifying his country's insistence that it had the right to select participants in a coalition and to establish the policies of the new government in the South.

I HAVE OFTEN wondered why United States negotiators did not take quicker advantage of Hanoi's flexibility on organizing elections. I have concluded that the barriers to a negotiated settlement were not so clearcut as you or Ambassador Lodge appear to assume in your recent remarks.

The impasse at the Paris talks is now history. It is time for Americans to discard their wartime grudges. As you commented on January 31, we all make mistakes. And as your National Security Affairs adviser remarked, none of us holds any monopoly over morality. Why, then, do you continue to insist that draft evaders be punished by the courts? Are you not thereby demanding that everyone acknowledge that your conduct of the Vietnam war was legal? The Supreme Court has never been willing to rule on the legality of the war which Congress has never declared.

Why hide behind legalisms? The time has come to repair the fabric of our society. One step which will speed that agonizing process would be a Presidential pardon to those who evaded military service. While these individuals have not suffered the fate of prisoners of war in North Vietnam, they are "prisoners of the war" in the sense that they left our country to avoid participation in a war started by forces beyond their control.

Please also keep in mind that what is true for Vietnamese has validity for Americans. The peace settlement itself settles nothing. It only offers the opportunity for the people of each country to begin to resolve their differences peacefully.

If you can negotiate with the Vietnamese, the Chinese and the Soviets, then you certainly can find a way to deal with Americans. Now is the time to arbitrate the amnesty issue in an open-minded way.

Please also keep in mind that what is true for Vietnamese has validity for Americans. The peace settlement itself settles nothing. It only offers the opportunity for the people of each country to begin to resolve their differences peacefully.

If you can negotiate with the Vietnamese, the Chinese and the Soviets, then you certainly can find a way to deal with Americans. Now is the time to arbitrate the amnesty issue in an open-minded way.