Waiting for the bombshell
VIETNAM JOSEPH CHAP31AN
A few months ago I wrote in these columns that the war in Vietnam had entered its final act. The reason was President Johnson's decision no longer to go on committing more and more American troops. It was a decision which neither he nor any successor was likely to go back on and was probably the most effective attempt to halt the drift of America's Vietnam policy since the early 1950s.
All that has happened since has only con- firmed this view. After the Tet offensive last February, both sides decided to go for com- promise. For Hanoi, Tet was a failure because it did not provbke the expected urban uprising in South Vietnam and it seriously depleted resources. For the Americans it was the final demonstration that they were endlessly shelling out their own resources in pursuit of a victory that they had never properly defined, and which was in effect unattainable. After the mutual reassessment, who would win the peace became more important than who would win the war.
The extent of the 'military stalemate was further emphasised by the change in the Ameri- can command. General Creighton Abrams has adopted a different strategy from General Westmoreland, from whom he took over early this summer. He does not go out and get the enemy (or rather go out and fail to get the enemy), but concentrates on holding the cities. As the Vietcong (who have never been able to hold a single city for more than a few days) have realised, this situation in theory could go on for years. The alternative is to negotiate.
Hanoi's desire. to negotiate became clear shortly after the Tet offensive began, with the setting up of a new South Vietnamese Front, the Alliance of Peaceful and Democratic Forces. As distinct from the National Liberation Front, the Alliance was intended to include neutralist, non-Communist elements. It was established as a negotiating body which could come forward to help provide the coalition government which Hanoi has always said must emerge in South Vietnam with a settlement. It is undoubtedly being held in reserve.
The desire for a coalitiOn became even clearer after the opening of the Paris talks. One of the first actions of Mr Le Duc Tho, the mem- ber of the North Vietnamese politburo who has been observing them, was to seek out the former chef de cabinet of the Emperor Bao Dai. Paris is full of Vietnamese exiles, many of them anxious to get back, and North Vietnamese contacts with them have continued.
All this is very different from the official line of the talks: there can be no progress until a complete and unconditional cessation of the bombing and all other acts of war against North Vietnam. Since the South Vietnamese govern- ment too had begun making its own contacts with neutralist elements in Paris and elsewhere, it was clear that the rehearsals for more serious negotiations were under way. In the past few weeks this has even been reflected in the official talks, which have moved to a discussion of the relative standing of the NLF and the Saigon government. The package deal lately offered Hanoi by President Johnson concerns just this. It offers a cessation of the bombing in return for the already visible (and perhaps unavoidable) slow- ing down of military activity by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces. But the second and essential part of the package is that the Saigon government should be represented at the talks. In return there would of course be room for the NLF, something which the Amer cans have in fact been ready to concede since 1965. The present hang-up has been caused by the failure to agree on a formula for the respective representation of Saigon and the Nit• The Americans at this stage could hardly accept parity between them. But could Hanoi accept ,01.) thing less?
It would be wrong to see this too much in the context of the American elections, if only be- cause it takes two to make a settlement and it is
hard to find any reason why Hanoi should wish 10 give President Johnson a parting gift. (Ameri- can suggestions that Ho has to negotiate now because he is frightened of Mr Nixon seem to me only to illustrate the Americans' obsession with their own political system.) Mr Johnson for his part has probably limited the options of his successor to a continuing search for a Saigon-Nu- formula, and to have tied things down to this extent is a measure of the de- ocalation which has already taken place.
These things can turn out in the most un- espected ways—a coup in Saigon, for example, or the death of Ho, might come as dens ex InAina. One doubts, however, whether even if either or both of these things happened, the fundamental picture would be much changed. This is that while both Hanoi and the Ameri- cans are preparing for a settlement, they find themselves victims of their owo creations. Hanoi finds it hard to abandon the fiction that the National Liberation Front represents the people of South Vietnam and is, in all policy decisions. independent of the North. The Americans find t hard to ditch a government of South Vietnam nhich they have so painfully set up and which has turned out to be rather more independent han perhaps they ever imagined. In a situation like this only a cynic could imagine= that a settlement could be reached. Only a cynic would be right. Those who have whole-heartedly sup- ported either side ought to prepare themselves
a shock.
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