Reality and Appearance

Despite reports by the pilots involved that inclement weather hampered the bombing of North Vietnam last month, the President assured the nation on January 2 that the bombing had in fact been "very, very effective." Since the bombs appear to have hit school-houses and hospitals rather than the assigned military targets, Nixon must have had in mind some other definition of "effective".

Clearly, the President wants everyone to know, and particularly his Chinese hosts in February, that he will bomb North Vietnam as much as he pleases until the very end, November 3, 1972. In the meantime, recent setbacks in Cambodia and Laos as well as expectation of an imminent offensive by North Vietnamese and PRG forces in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam seem to undercut the President's bold rhetoric. And, when Nixon is in Peking in February, the leaders of the Indochinese revolutionaries will be having a strategy session of their own in Hanoi.

President Nixon has chosen to mask his intention to stay in Vietnam until the end of 1972 in the guise of a question: will Hanoi refuse to negotiate on P.O.W.'s and thereby "cause" the United States to maintain a residual force in South Vietnam"

But as early as June, 1970, when Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme spoke with Secretary of State Rogers. Nixon has known that Hanoi might agree to release its prisoners in exchange for a fixed U.S. withdrawal date.

Concerning the July 1 proposal on prisoners of war by the Provisional Revolutionary Government, Palme told Metromedia Radio on August 18, 1971, that his country was "...long before the Vietnamese came along with this suggestion or this proposal--suggesting a solution along these lines. It's logical because if the withdrawal of troops will take place anyway it's the prisoners who are very important to the American government and, therefore, if you couple them both you could achieve two ends in one stroke."

Between June and September 1971, the Hanoi delegation at Paris frequently brought the possibility of such an exchange to the attention of U.S. citizens. On July 6, a high-ranking member of the North Vietnamese Politbureau, Le Duc Tho, spoke of the above exchange in an interview with the New York Times. Although he questioned whether Nixon would agree to the proposal, Tho specified that his government was prepared to promptly reach a negotiated solution. The Nixon administration did not respond.

On September 12 at Paris, Senator George McGovern told reporters that Hanoi would agree to release prisoners if the United States would agree to fix a withdrawal date. Four days later at the regular session of the Paris Talks, U.S. Ambassador William Porter cleverly challenged Hanoi to affirm or deny statements made by McGovern and others. Porter guessed correctly that Hanoi would not affirm McGovern's statement publicly, since such an affirmation would probably have implied acquiescence to the American-orchestrated, one-man election of President Thieu which was to occur in early October. Only in late August had General Minh and Vice President Ky withdrawn from the presidential "race". Thus, at a critical point prior to the October election, Hanoi saw no cause to boost Thieu's stature which remains even today at a very low ebb.

On January 3, 1972, minutes before he told newsmen that Nixon had "deceived the American people" into believing that Hanoi would not agree to exchange U.S. prisoners for a fixed withdrawal date for all U.S. forces, McGovern telephoned Xuan Oanh, secretary of the North Vietnamese delegation at Paris, to clarify the conditions for prisoner release. Oanh confirmed that his government would release prisoners in exchange for a fixed U.S. withdrawal date; when asked of the fate of the Thieu regime if the U.S. agreed to a withdrawal date, Oanh said that it was the best judgement of his delegation that Thieu would quickly resign.

At the regularly scheduled meeting of the Paris Talks on January 6, Hanoi once again publicly linked the question of U.S. withdrawal with that of an end to U.S. support to Thieu. While this statement may appear to contradict McGovern, the reader might ask: why, after the U.S. had bombed North Vietnam for seven days in late December, should Hanoi publically appear ready to compromise and submit to the desires of the Nixon administration?

That Hanoi has only once publicly confirmed its private statements--i.e., to the New York Times on July 6--should convince the reader that behind its public rhetoric at Paris. Hanoi has another policy in cold-storage. The North Vietnamese will unveil that policy when they, not Nixon, are ready.

In the January issue of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Claude Pomonti, Le Monde's correspondent in Southeast Asia, discusses the political and military situation in South Vietnam. Pomonti believes that South Vietnamese public opinion is not quite at the point at which, after a gust of "fresh political and social turmoil," it will cast off its American-installed leaders in favor of a new regime that will truly satisfy its nationalistic urges.

In anticipation of that turmoil, a new generation of leaders is preparing to take over the governing of South Vietnam, Pomonti writes:

"Whether President Thieu clings to power or renounces it, whether he succeeds in negotiating his departure (for example, in return for a ceasefire), or if he is turned out--in short, whether or not he is party to the negotiations--is more a matter of form than of substance. In return, the police and military personnel of Saigon will soon find themselves once again faced with responsibility. If they wish to play the leading role to which they claim to aspire, they must simultaneously channel and express popular sentiment. Such a victory over self is the price for achieving a leading role in the new cycle which will soon begin, and in which the elite will be able to justify its existence. If this does not happen, the current 'popular expectation,' which is still more or less passive, will turn toward those who will be left after such a failure, i.e., the only coherent rallying point: the Vietcong and their fellow travelers."

As the U.S. withdraws from South Vietnam, North Vietnam and the PRG have, as at Paris on December 8, shown increasing interest in the U.S.'s future intentions in Laos and Cambodia. Given the overwhelming victories gained in those two countries in December by North Vietnam and its allies, it may be--as a secret intelligence report to the President released by Jack Anderson suggests but as the North Vietnamese and PRG have hinted many times at Paris since August 1970--that a de facto ceasefire in those two countries and perhaps also in South Vietnam will take place. A process of conciliation and mediation could follow the beginning of such a ceasefire.

Given the reality that the U.S. and its allies can no longer stop the Indochinese revolutionaries, Nixon will gradually turn to diplomatic methods to achieve his aims. But the more he delays the decision to do so, the less likely it is that he will be able to arrange that events in Indochina not be a factor in the November election.

Human factors may also overwhelm the President, especially in light of a report by Wilfred Burchett that recent U.S. bombing raids over North Vietnam have convinced Hanoi not to release any more prisoners before the U.S. agrees to a withdrawal date.

In a few months, Nixon will have returned from Peking and the Indochinese revolutionaries will have ended their conference in Hanoi. Indochina's future will have been determined. Even now it is clear that unless President Nixon decides very soon to withdraw all of his forces by a specific date, the next year and future years will not be peaceful in Indochina.