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> When could the shooting stop?
The cease-fire agreement would be signed, said Kissinger, "in a matter of weeks or less"—possibly before the U.S. election on Nov. 7, more probably later on this month.
> How soon could the G.I.s and P.O.W.s be home? Within 60 days—or before Inauguration Day if the papers are signed in the next three weeks.
> Will there really be peace? For the U.S., yes. For the Vietnamese, the conflict would enter a new phase, in which fighting among Vietnamese might continue, although probably on a much reduced scale.
> Who won? Probably neither side. Hanoi will certainly claim victory over the U.S., but the outcome will probably be a military and political draw for the foreseeable future. Both Washington and Hanoi accepted compromises well short of their long-held goals.
> Will there be a bloodbath? No firm predictions are possible about this long-feared possibility. The agreement does, however, contain assurances against post-settlement violence, whatever they may be worth.
> Will the U.S. pay to help rebuild North Viet Nam? Yes, and Hanoi hints that the amount may have been agreed upon.
Washington's struggle to bring the fighting to a close inevitably shifted the U.S. role in the conflict from ally and combatant to mediator between Hanoi and Saigon—and there were signs in the explosive events of last week that the new role was proving to be as slippery as the old one. Although TIME had learned and published the outline of the secret agreements, there was no public confirmation of them until Saigon's fulminations against what was afoot and moves by Washington to seek more negotiations panicked a suspicious Hanoi into breaking its secrecy agreements with the U.S. and broadcasting the details. That in turn forced Washington to its public commitment, through Henry Kissinger, to the success of an extraordinarily intricate enterprise.
The imbroglio began with Kissinger's journey to Saigon. He managed to obtain Thieu's reluctant agreement to a cease-fire after four days of "heated" talks. But the tough-minded South Vietnamese President dug in against the proposal for a three-part council composed of Communists, Thieu loyalists and "neutrals." It would arrange elections, which Thieu fears would lead to a gradual Communist takeover or at least a new constitution that would effectively drum his narrowly based regime out of power. Fighting back in a two-hour TV address last week, Thieu denounced the plan as "a cunning scheme" of the Communists. Later on he threw up more flak in the form of a proposal for a United Nations-supervised vote to choose members of an electoral commission that would take the place of the three-part council.
Then it was North Viet Nam's turn. Fearful that the settlement—which it evidently wanted very badly—might collapse, Hanoi mounted a frenzied campaign to pressure Washington into carrying it through. The North Vietnamese made direct appeals to Peking and Moscow to urge Washington to complete the negotiations. North Vietnamese diplomats in East European capitals called on Hanoi's Communist allies for similar third-party support.