ALMOST from the moment that it started bombing targets in the North, the U.S. has repeatedly stated its willingness to negotiate peace in Viet Nam—any time, anywhere. But so far, the possible terms for a settlement have been discussed in only the most general way. President Johnson has said that South Viet Nam should be guaranteed peace, independence and democracy—the same conditions that the Viet Cong tirelessly call for. Senator William Fulbright speaks of neutralization and mutual withdrawal by U.S. and North Vietnamese forces. Senator Eugene McCarthy speaks rather broadly of withdrawing to strongpoints, reducing military operations and trying to negotiate. Such veteran cold warriors as Henry Cabot Lodge and Dean Acheson, arguing that the only riskless settlement is victory on the battlefield, contend that the U.S. should not seek negotiations but do more to win the war.
The apparent main concern inside the U.S. Government —at the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon—continues to be prosecution of the war rather than formulation of terms for peace. As far as public priorities are concerned, this is logical enough; what private thoughts the Administration has about a settlement should remain private until they can be used for practical effect. But since the war quite possibly will end by negotiation, the U.S. had better have clearly in mind the maximum goals that it aims for and the minimum terms it will settle for.
The question of terms has lately achieved a new importance. The Viet Cong, speaking through Russian and Rumanian diplomats, have communicated to the West what seem to be hints that they might be willing to negotiate. Captured Communist documents in Viet Nam tend to suggest the same possibility. Negotiations usually start when one side demonstrates clear military or political superiority and the other side seeks to protect what it still has. The Communists are hurting badly in the field and at home. They are losing more than four men for every one lost by the allies—in some recent actions the ratio is more than ten to one—and they are expending troops so extravagantly as to suggest an element of desperation.
This does not necessarily mean that negotiations will come soon, or that the shooting will stop as soon as talks start. In the Korean War, the fighting continued while truce talks dragged on for two years at Panmunjom, and the U.S. suffered 62,200 casualties during the negotiations. In Viet Nam, there are four primary belligerents, and nobody can agree on who will talk about what to whom. The Viet Cong rebels say that they will talk only directly to the U.S.; the South Vietnamese leaders say that they will talk only to Ho Chi Minh; and Ho—unlike the Viet Cong—apparently will talk to nobody. But in war, negotiations sometimes come when least expected, just after one side or the other swears that it will never countenance them. When that time comes in Viet Nam, its resilient Communists will characteristically try to twist Clausewitz and turn diplomacy into war by other means.
Maximum Goals & Minimum Compromises