'A Path to Negotiate'

As the dry season approaches in Indochina, there are reports that the United States is planning new military operations and intensified bombing campaigns; many more Indochinese will die by next April. President Nixon told reporters on Friday that he planned to accelerate with-drawals by February, and he left a faint hope that negotiations at Paris or elsewhere might be an effective means to end the war.

But Nixon has certainly had little use for the Paris peace talks. Apart from their limited propaganda value, Nixon has pretended that what has actually been happening in Paris hasn't really been happening at all.

The U.S. negotiators also have not been able to comprehend the Vietnamese approach to negotiations, and as a result they have not been able to understand the actual negotiating positions of Hanoi and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG). The reasons for the U.S. inability deserve explanation.

On July 31, 1969, at the Paris talks, U.S. diplomats completely failed to grasp the importance of the fact that Hanoi delegate Xuan Thuy, when challenged by Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, deleted the words "peace, independence and neutrality" in reference to those who might participate in a provisional coalition. This was the first time that the American delegate had challenged his North Vietnamese counterpart on the coalition participation issue.

The significance of Thuy's deletion was that those who do not stand for "peace, independence and neutrality" i.e., those whom Hanoi does not approve of, would participate in a coalition.

Had Nixon diverted some attention from the moon mission to more mundane matters, he would have sensed the significance of the Hanoi delegate's remark.

Alexander Woodside, assistant professor of History, has pointed out in his book Vietnam and the Chinese Model that the nineteenth century Vietnamese bureaucratic code employed repetitiveness to ingrain "a specific written system of political signals" into the mind of the Vietnamese student. Woodside adds, "These written codes were narrow and restricted, in the interests of encouraging predictable behavior. Individual discretion and originality were reduced in the process."

In the context of its historically rigid framework, Thuy's deletion of "peace, independence and neutrality" represented a significant variation from Hanoi's official policy. Thuy communicated a message which, like others delivered by the North Vietnamese in August, 1969, Nixon and his advisors misunderstood. Whether the misunderstanding was truly misunderstanding is still not clear.

In his February 25, 1971 report to Congress, President Nixon suggests that if Hanoi and the PRG ever become "seriously" interested in negotiation, "We could find a way to reach a solution fair for all parties." In the same paragraph of the same report, however, it is clearly Henry Kissinger who tells us that to find an appropriate and equitable means "to help" the South Vietnamese express their political will, "There is little guidance to be drawn from Vietnamese history."

That he finds "little guidance" from Vietnamese history may indicate Dr. Kissinger's lack of familiarity with that subject.

Nguyen Thi Binh's plan in seven points of July 1, 1971, is just another expression of the tactical flexibility of the Vietnamese and their negotiators. Binh seeks to tell us the following:

* The release of American prisoners of war will occur during the period when the U.S. announces and then completes withdrawal of its troops from Vietnam.

* When the U.S. announces a withdrawal date, a cease-fire will take place between the forces of the Provisional Revolutionary Government and of the U.S.

* Settlement of the prisoner of war question may occur before a political settlement in South Vietnam. Clearly, though, after settlement of the prisoner of war issue, the parties will proceed to a political solution.

* A provisional administration, not a provisional coalition, of the various social, political and religious forces in South Vietnam--regardless of their pasts but who now favor peace and national concord--would displace the Thieu regime. Binh did not rule out Thieu's participation in the provisional administration; a person who does not favor "peace, independence and neutrality" may participate, but the provisional administration will favor those goals.

The provisional administration would negotiate with the Provisional Revolutionary Government to form a more broadly-based regime which would organize and undertake general elections. With the formation of such a broadly-based regime, a cease-fire would occur among the warring parties in South Vietnam.

Unlike past PRG proposals, Binh's July 1 plan fails to declare the nature of the broadly-based regime that would organize elections or that of the regime that would follow elections.

Prior to the formation of the broadly-based regime to organize elections, the parties will settle the question, of political prisoners and political rights. All persons held under duress will be free to return to their homes and to pursue their livelihoods.

There will be a stabilization of living conditions, in order "to create conditions allowing everyone to contribute his talents and efforts to heal the war wounds, to rebuild the country."

"The Vietnamese parties will settle the question of Vietnamese armed forces in South Vietnam in a spirit of national concord, equality, and mutual respect, without foreign interference, in accordance with the postwar situation and with a view to lightening the people's contribution."

As the "peoples' contributions" are quite heavy, Hanoi has every interest to see that the postwar situation and the withdrawal of "certain Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam" proceed smoothly enough not to tempt President Nixon to reinvolve the United States in Vietnam, directly or through Cambodia.

The July 1 plan never mentions the Laos and Cambodia problems which will become soluble after solution of the Vietnam problem.

A spirit of mutual respect among the Vietnamese parties will accelerate the process of Vietnam's reunification. Reunification will occur on the basis of negotiations among the Vietnamese, "without constraint and annexation from either party, and without foreign interference."

Neither zone will take advantage of the period before reunification to accumulate military strength, alliances and foreign troops with which to overwhelm the other. However, the July 1 plan does not rule out acceptance of foreign military and economic aid by either zone; that is, prior to final agreement on reunification none of the armies presently in combat--including President Thieu's army--would be cut off from its source of supply.

South Vietnam will accept foreign assistance to develop its mineral resources, if such assistance comes without political strings; it will participate in plans for Southeast Asian regional economic cooperation.

The United States will have to "bear full responsibility" for damages caused to both zones of Vietnam. Although the U.S. must accept that burden, Hanoi and the Provisional Revolutionary Government have not ruled out an international aid effort, as proposed by Sweden, to provide and required economic assistance.

As the former director of the Cornell Southeast Asian studies program, George McT. Kahin, has recently reported, Hanoi will agree to international supervision and guarantees for all phases of a negotiated settlement. An international supervisory role in Vietnam could begin as soon as the U.S. announces a withdrawal date.

It is possible that in the future, President Nixon will choose to ignore the negotiating position of Hanoi and the Provisional Revolutionary Government. He will take his "pleas for peace" to Peking and Moscow, and in the meantime he will soothe the American public with gentle reassurances that their boys will not be dying in Vietnam much longer. Saigon can fight its own war."

All will be calm and placid in the White House, but gallons of blood will continue to flow. The moans of the bereaved and of the maimed will not be silenced.