It was expected that President Johnson would do something dramatic on the eve of polling in the American presidential election to help Mr. Hubert Humphrey. He has done it by ordering the complete stoppage of bombing raids over North Viet Nam. Whether this move would help Mr. Humphrey catch up with Mr. Nixon, who has still a substantial lead over him is however a different matter.
But if the timing of President Johnson’s decision has been influenced by electoral consideration it has not been determined by them. He could not have made the move unless Hanoi had more than indicated its willingness to make the reciprocal concessions which Washington had been insisting on.
The North Viet Namese have maintained the public posture that they would not enter into substantive discussions unless the United States unconditionally stopped its bombing raids. In fact they have engaged in secret negotiations with American representatives directly and through third parties and have given concrete assurances.
Hanoi has given Washington to understand that it would not exploit the stoppage of bombing to increase its infiltration of men and material into South Viet Nam. It has been estimated that bombing killed or disabled 10 per cent of the North Viet Namese trying to cross into the demilitarised zone. American military leaders regarded this as a great advantage.
Withdrawal
The North Viet Namese have in fact already proved that they mean business. In recent weeks they have withdrawn a substantial number of troops from the south as part of their decision to de-escalate the war. The estimates of these withdrawals vary from 20, 000 to 60,000. The important point is that withdrawals have taken place and are on a significant scale.
Hanoi has also undertaken to respect the demilitarised zone between the two Viet Nams. This is a major concession because the North Viet Namese would use the respite to move heavy equipment into the zone and then step up their attacks on important bases in the vicinity.
It is equally significant that Hanoi has accepted a formula which circumvents at least for the time being the highly ticklish issue of defining the status of the National Liberation Front. It is true that the North Viet Namese for all practical purposes abandoned lone ago the claim that the NLF was the sole representative of the people in the south and that the United States should negotiate with it directly. All the same the present gesture is highly conciliatory.
President Johnson’s statement has said, “we are informed by the representatives of the Hanoi Government that the representatives of the National Liberation Front will also be present” at the regular session of the Paris talks next Wednesday. He adds, “I emphasise that their attendance in no way involves recognition of the National Liberation Front in any form. Yet it conforms to the statements that we have made many times over the years that the NLF would have no difficulty in making its views known.”
In sum it means that for the time being the NLF representatives will function as part of Hanoi’s delegation and that the question of determining their status has been left to subsequent negotiations.
Speculation
It had been known for some weeks before President Johnson made the announcement that Hanoi was in a far more conciliatory mood than ever before. This has inevitably produced a sizeable crop of speculation. Mr Victor Zorza has, for instance, taken the view in an article in The Guardian, London, that there has taken place something like a reversal of roles in Hanoi in that the erstwhile hawks are now taking doveish positions and that they command a majority in the party leadership as they have done most of the time. Some other commentators like Mr. Peter Jenkins of The Guardian and the Viet Nam specialist on the staff of The Economist, London, have said that Hanoi has at last recognised that military victory is beyond its grasp and that it is adjusting its policy accordingly.
Inevitably there have also been some conjectures regarding the Soviet Union’s role in persuading the North Viet Namese to adopt a more resilient posture. Moscow is known to have favoured a negotiated settlement all along. Its influence in Hanoi has increased in the past two years as it has supplanted Peking as the principal source of economic and military aid. According to American experts the Soviet Union provided North Viet Nam military hardware worth something like $800 million last year and the figure would rise to $ one billion this year. It is not for nothing that the Chinese leaders have been shrieking about the so-called Soviet betrayal in Viet Nam.
It is also possible that Hanoi is not altogether disinterested in the outcome of the presidential election in the United States and that it would like to see in the White House a man who is genuinely committed to the objective of peace in Viet Nam. Mr. Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues have shown a splendid sense of timing in the past and they may be doing so once again.
In the case of the United States there is no need for speculation. Since the end of the civil war no issue has divided that country as deeply as the war in Viet Nam. The peace movement has been strongly reinforced by the growing realisation that America needs to curtail its international commitments to be able to tackle the twin problems of racial inequality and relative poverty among the lowest layer of society. The country’s youth has also picked on the war in Viet Nam as the symbol of all that is wrong with the American way of life.
But it would be erroneous to conclude that Washington has accepted the view of its critics and that it has decided to withdraw from Viet Nam as soon as it can find a face-saving formula. In fact it has decided to de-escalate the conflict, not as a prelude to a total withdrawal but as a prelude to a substantial reduction in the level of American military presence so that it can be maintained so long as it is necessary to do so in pursuance of its treaty commitments to Saigon and its overall interests in the region.
To see President Johnson’s present action in proper perspective it is perhaps necessary to refer to his broadcast of March 31. He then announced three decisions – that he would not offer himself as a candidate for presidency, that the bombing of North Viet Nam would be limited to the vicinity of the demilitarised zone and that the strength of American forces in South Viet Nam would not be greatly increased.
Important
The world’s attention was unavoidably focussed on the first two points. But the third point was equally important. It meant that Gen. Westmoreland’s request for another 200,000 troops had been refused. It indicated not only a change of strategy (abandonment of the policy of search and destroy) but also a basic decision to de-escalate the war.
Before the Tet offensive the United States had steadily raised the level of its commitment in South Viet Nam in the hope that it could win the war if only it stayed the course long enough. The hope had proved illusory a number of times but it had not been shattered. When spokesmen of the Administration claimed that the corner had been turned, they meant it. Whatever its cost to the North Viet Namese and their Viet Cong allies the Tet offensive finally buried Washington’s illusion of victory and confronted it with a choice between de-escalation and further escalation and all that it meant in terms of the aggravation of bitter divisions at home and within the Western alliance, run on the dollar which had come under pressure and the freezing of relations with the Soviet Union.
President Johnson had little choice but to opt for the latter alternative unless he was prepared to contemplate so disastrous a measure as the use of nuclear weapons against North Viet Nam. It is a sign of the progress that has been made since those dark days that it is today impossible to believe that such a move could have been thought of by anyone in his senses. But the fact remains that earlier in the summer it was common for American officers and soldiers in South Viet Nam to speak of the need for using a couple of “baby nukes” (tactical nuclear weapons).
President Johnson’s task was considerably facilitated by a significant shift in Hanoi’s policy. It offered to open negotiations with the United States as soon as the latter stopped its bombing raids. It agreed to begin talks about talks in Paris in response to President Johnson’s move to limit bombing.
The opening of preliminary talks in Paris did not mean that Washington and Hanoi had suddenly been converted to the view that a negotiated settlement was indeed possible. On any reckoning the odds against a negotiated peace were exceptionally heavy. That remains the case today. The hostility of the Saigon Government to the stoppage of bombing illustrates the point.
There is reason to believe that when Washington and Hanoi agreed to begin direct talks in Paris last May they were guided by military-strategic considerations. Both felt compelled to seek a de-escalation of the conflict. The present moves are in every sense a logical sequence if not a consequence of the earlier decision.
It is idle to speculate on future developments at this stage. There are too many imponderables in the situation. No one can say for certain who will be the next President of the United States, whether he would go along with the present Administration’s approach, whether or not America and Russia would be able to work out a general agreement, whether the Saigon Government would be able to survive the shock of what President Thieu has called America’s unilateral decision to stop the bombing of North Viet Nam and whether the present balance of forces would hold in Hanoi.
But it can be said even at this stage that something like a miracle would be needed to persuade the military junta which is still all-powerful in Saigon to admit the NLF into the government except in a nominal role. It is equally inconceivable that the NLF would agree to play a minor role. These problems cannot be circumvented and that is one reason why President Johnson has been careful to emphasise that a cease-fire is not round the comer and that hard fighting is ahead. The Panmunjom truce talks lasted two years and it required a major change in Soviet policy before they could succeed.
It is not inconceivable that gradually both sides would tend to seek a solution of this intractable problem in another partition of Viet Nam. America might accept the enclave theory strongly advocated by Gen. Gavin and Mr George Kennan among others and concentrate all its efforts in helping the Saigon Government to hold on to the populous centres on the coast leaving the larger parts of the countryside to the NLF and its military wing, the Viet Cong. The adoption of such a strategy can enable Washington to withdraw the bulk of its forces from South Viet Nam. Washington can sustain a force of 100,000 to 200,000 men on the Asian mainland for a long time. Saigon in the end may have no option but to go along with this approach if it comes to be accepted in Washington. The question is whether Hanoi would be satisfied with something much less than what it has been struggling to achieve – unification of Viet Nam under its auspices.
The Times of India, 2 November 1968