But why did he concede on the mutual troop withdrawal, something that he had stubbornly clung to in negotiations since his first meetings with Hanoi’s negotiators in Paris? It now seems clear that Kissinger’s willingness to yield on this important issue was directly tied to his belief that the Laos attacks had been a failure and that, as a result, public pressure was mounting to end the war sooner than he or Nixon wanted to. Publicly he had praised the Lam Son operation, but privately he admitted that Laos “comes out clearly as not a success.”110 Nixon called the ARVN a “poor excuse” for a military and believed that there was “goddamn poor execution” on Abrams’s part.111 The marches and protests in Washington by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) during the Laos attacks also unnerved the Nixon administration, so there was plenty of pressure on the negotiations to bear fruit. As the Laos operation unraveled, Kissinger began to explore with Nixon the idea of allowing North Vietnamese troops to stay in South Vietnam in exchange for a well-timed final agreement. During several lengthy phone conversations with Nixon in April and May, Kissinger had raised the possibility of dropping the mutual troop withdrawal request. He told the president, “We can either not have mutual withdrawal, but just negotiate a cease-fire for our withdrawal and the prisoners, which would give everybody another year to gear themselves up without Communist attacks.”112 The implication was clear: if Nixon wanted a settlement just after the 1972 US presidential election, Kissinger had to make some compromises in Paris.
Kissinger understood that the troop withdrawal issue was important, but he shared the president’s belief that punishing Hanoi militarily “with a high level of air sorties at least through the US elections” was equally so.113 He agreed with Nixon that Saigon should be given “everything it needs in the way of helicopters, planes, artillery, and supplies,” but eventually the South Vietnamese would have “to protect themselves.”114 In other words, going into the May 31 meeting, Kissinger was committed to allowing Saigon to face Hanoi alone and with North Vietnamese troops already inside South Vietnam as part of the peace agreement. US air power would provide cover for the ARVN, but eventually Saigon would have to win the war on its own.
Many scholars have called this Kissinger approach “a decent interval.” They claim that he was merely trying to buy Saigon enough time to decouple in the minds of most Americans the timing of the US troop withdrawal and the inevitable PAVN military victory over South Vietnam.115 They argue that Kissinger negotiated an agreement that amounted to a suicide pact for Saigon but was a face-saving defeat for the United States. This interpretation has gained currency among scholars because of Kissinger’s subsequent discussions with the Chinese prime minister, Zhou Enlai, in the summer of 1971, when he told Zhou that the United States required “a transition period between the military withdrawal and the political evolution… If after complete American withdrawal, the Indochinese people change their government, the US will not interfere.”116 In Paris, Kissinger suggested that the United States could not leave behind a unified Vietnam under the Communist banner, but once American troops were withdrawn, they would not return and the United States would not intervene in any political settlement that would follow. Kissinger also implied that there had to be a cease-fire of about eighteen months to uncouple, in the minds of most Americans, the US withdrawal from what would inevitably follow in Vietnam: the collapse of South Vietnam.117 Nixon agreed with these sentiments, commenting that “simply ending the war in the right way” might not save South Vietnam.118
Although there is ample evidence that Kissinger explored the decent interval with Zhou in July 1971, he remained committed, at least in principle, to the idea that he could coordinate punishing military strikes against North Vietnam with diplomacy in Paris on May 31 to get a favorable outcome for Nixon just before the election. South Vietnam was not primary in his mind; getting Nixon reelected was—and this meant dealing with Hanoi, not Saigon. Kissinger shared the view with the president that the United States could always use its “hole card,” the massive bombing and mining of Hanoi and Haiphong in North Vietnam to force Hanoi to make concessions in Paris following the Laos debacle.119 He also believed that diplomatic breakthroughs with the Soviet Union and China offered a ray of hope in Vietnam. Like Nixon, Kissinger thought that “the Chinese might put… some pressure on Hanoi,” and that détente threatened to undermine the DRV’s entire position.120 Diplomatic success in Moscow and Beijing also could have a positive impact on the domestic political climate; something Nixon was always sensitive to. Kissinger told the president that he would also warn Moscow to “tell their little yellow friends to stop these games. We are not going down quietly.”121 Nixon agreed, telling his closest aides that he was not going to “go out of Vietnam whimpering.”122
Kissinger and his associate Winston Lord worked out the details of the proposal well in advance of the May 31 meeting in Paris. Lord sent him a memo on April 12, outlining where the negotiations stood at that point and summarizing for Kissinger what would be gained with the new approach of not insisting on a North Vietnamese withdrawal from South Vietnam.123 The key for both seemed to be that the North Vietnamese would not be allowed to have a “net increase” of forces inside South Vietnam. Rotating troops would be permitted under the cease-fire, but the number of troops would be constant. Furthermore, the proposal banned infiltration into Laos and Cambodia, making it possible for South Vietnam to concentrate on the forces already in the country. Kissinger reasoned that Hanoi might be interested in this new proposal, even if it did not topple the Saigon government, one of the DRV’s top demands. Instead, it called for political negotiations between the PRG/NLF, Hanoi, and Saigon, concluding that “political matters should be settled among the Vietnamese themselves.”124 Kissinger decided not to tell Thieu all the details of his latest proposal, fearing that it might create panic in Saigon. Instead, he flew to Paris somewhat confident that Hanoi would see the dramatic change in the US position and agree to a quick settlement.
What is truly interesting is just how unsure Kissinger was about the technical aspects of his own negotiating position this time around. Astonishingly, during one lengthy meeting with his senior review group prior to the Paris meeting, the national security adviser asked, “Let’s assume we negotiate a ceasefire in place. Has anyone ever studied what either side will do the month before the ceasefire takes effect to achieve the best position?”125 Perhaps Kissinger knew all along that Hanoi would reject his latest offer, so the details of what would happen to North Vietnamese troops inside South Vietnam did not seem all that important at the time. What the PAVN was allowed to do was certainly important to Thieu and the Saigon government, who must have shared a sigh of relief when Hanoi rejected Kissinger’s May 31 proposal outright.
Despite rebuffing Kissinger’s latest offer, Hanoi had noticed that he was slowly meeting some of its demands. It was delighted to see that the United States no longer insisted on a mutual withdrawal from South Vietnam, and Hanoi’s leaders clearly understood that the lack of any enforcement mechanism on infiltration played in their favor. The main sticking point, however, was that Kissinger still insisted that Thieu remain in power. Hanoi also strenuously objected to Kissinger’s unwillingness to set a date for the US troop withdrawal. Despite their reservations, Hanoi’s representatives agreed to meet again at the end of June.
When the parties met again on June 26, Kissinger noticed that the usually “dingy” North Vietnamese delegation apartment now had a formal negotiating table instead of easy chairs. He took this as a sign that Hanoi was finally serious about negotiations.126 After the usual pleasantries, Xuan Thuy asked him to clarify an important point for Hanoi: “The last time Mr. Special Adviser [Kissinger] said the US would fix a date for troop withdrawal, when it knew about the release of the POWs, but would not fix a date if it is not clear about the prisoners.” Thuy asked whether it was correct that Kissinger was still unwilling to give a date for the total US withdrawal, but still wanted the POWs returned?127 Kissinger respo
nded that the seven points were a package, that if Hanoi accepted all of the “essential principles”—the cease-fire, neutrality for South Vietnam, and the release of the POWs—then the United States would certainly set a date for the total US withdrawal.128 Thuy looked encouraged. After a short tea break, he emerged from an upstairs room holding a paper that contained the official North Vietnamese response to Kissinger’s seven points.
Presenting Hanoi’s new nine-point plan, Thuy joked that Hanoi’s proposal was “more earnest than yours to end the war” because it contained two more points.129 The only new provision in Hanoi’s nine points was that the United States would now be liable for postwar reparations. Thuy offered a somewhat modified condition on the South Vietnamese government. The United States no longer had to overturn the Thieu government, as previously required; now it merely had to “stop supporting the Saigon government.”130 Kissinger rejected the call for reparations outright, but in reporting to Nixon, he once again chose to accentuate the positive. He claimed that for the first time in two years of solid negotiations, Hanoi had made a “concrete rejoinder” to a US proposal. Instead of offering a list of demands, he reported that Hanoi’s nine points were presented as a “negotiating document” and that compromise seemed possible.131 He told Nixon that Thuy and Tho were willing now, for the first time, to bargain. He was especially encouraged that Hanoi was willing to accept the entire US seven points as a basis for negotiation.
The sticking point for Kissinger remained, however, what Hanoi expected the United States to do with the Saigon government. The North Vietnamese had not called for a US-supported coup against Thieu as it previously required, nor had it insisted on the formation of a coalition government as a condition of the agreement. Instead, Hanoi seemed to be asking the United States to be neutral in the upcoming South Vietnamese presidential elections, now scheduled for October 1971. If the United States did not openly support Thieu, then it might be able to support another candidate, one more to Hanoi’s liking. There had long been speculation in South Vietnam that the Communists and some third-wave leaders were supporting the candidacy of General Duong Van Minh (Big Minh). Minh had carried a serious grudge against Thieu ever since 1964, when Thieu had provided the military support to oust Minh in a bloodless coup.
Minh had come to power following the assassination of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem in November 1963, but he had angered the Americans in Saigon by steering an increasingly independent course. On January 30, 1964, forces under the control of General Nguyen Khanh arrested Minh and stripped him of power. After his incarceration, Minh returned to Saigon and was active in several pro-democracy groups. As the former chief of state of South Vietnam, Minh was an attractive candidate for a formal alliance with the PRG/NLF. US intelligence reported that Minh had maintained a degree of respectability among Saigon’s elite, even as it appeared that he had made contact with the Communists. Minh had enough popular support to cause Thieu political headaches, and his appeal for a negotiated settlement with the PRG/NLF was an appealing option for many South Vietnamese. The PRG eventually launched a full-scale diplomatic offensive to have Minh put on the ballot. In early June 1971, he announced his candidacy, but Thieu pushed through a new law in the National Assembly that required all presidential candidates to obtain the signatures of 40 percent of its membership. When Minh easily met this challenge, Thieu called upon the US embassy to pressure Minh to withdraw his candidacy. Eventually, Minh relented. There has always been some speculation that Minh was put forward by his friends in the PRG and then told to resign when it would create the most embarrassing situation for the United States.132
Kissinger wrote at the time, “For all his faults, Thieu has been a loyal ally. Moreover… American complicity in the coup against Diem would make our involvement in Thieu’s removal even more unpalatable.”133 His unwavering support for Thieu is somewhat ironic, given that he never consulted with the South Vietnamese president when he was making important decisions about Saigon’s future during the negotiations. Yet Thieu’s removal was the key sticking point in these negotiations, and Kissinger consistently defended the legitimacy of a man that he clearly did not trust or choose to rely upon in any way. What the possibilities were in Saigon went unexplored during the 1971 elections because no one in the Nixon administration wanted to take a closer look at South Vietnamese politics. The South Vietnamese were cast by the Nixon administration as passive actors in their own history, one of the greatest tragedies of the Vietnam War.
Still, Kissinger continued to believe that there was room for negotiation in Paris. He met twice in July 1971 with Xuan Thuy and Le Duc Tho, and in both meetings he reported to Nixon that Hanoi had conceded on some points. One of the major areas of change was Hanoi’s willingness to call war reparations “US contributions to heal the destruction of war.”134 This removed the guilt clause from the notion of reparations. Kissinger vaguely suggested postwar loans and grants could help rebuild all three war-torn nations, but he never explored this option fully in Paris. This was a major point that could have been explored more fully, but it was never given any serious thought. Another opportunity for leverage in the negotiations left unexplored. He also stated for the first time that the administration was prepared to set a US troop withdrawal date of nine months after an agreement was reached. Hanoi wanted a fixed deadline—something he refused to provide—but eventually agreed that the POW releases and the US troop withdrawal could be linked. Kissinger reported to Nixon that real progress was being made in Paris, but that the big breakthrough they had hoped for would not happen before the South Vietnamese elections.135 Still, he argued that Hanoi was serious about negotiations and that “the shape of a deal” was now emerging in Paris.136 This was more wishful thinking on Kissinger’s part. Hanoi’s consistent demands never wavered until it felt that favorable balance of forces in South Vietnam allowed it to delay some of its objectives until after an agreement.
Two more meetings in Paris in the early fall of 1971 moved the United States and Hanoi even closer together on military matters, but the major political issues still kept them apart. Kissinger proposed a new timetable for US troop withdrawals, August 1, 1972, as long as a final agreement was signed by November 1, 1972, thus assuring Nixon of a peace dividend at the polls. He told his North Vietnamese counterparts that even this date could be adjusted because it was not a matter of principle but merely a technicality. On principle, Kissinger insisted, Hanoi and Washington were not far apart. Thuy agreed, claiming that “the political problem is still unsettled and… our withdrawal deadlines are far apart,” but the other issues “can be resolved.”137 All the United States had to do to get an immediate settlement, Thuy implied, was to exclude Thieu from the upcoming elections. In Hanoi, party leaders thought this proposal gave the United States a face-saving way out of Vietnam. If the United States simply removed Thieu from the possible presidential candidates in South Vietnam, it could withdraw with its POWs released and a public pledge that the people of South Vietnam would settle the political issues themselves. But Kissinger later declared that he was not prepared to “toss Thieu to the wolves.”138
Despite Kissinger’s claims of great progress in Paris, Nixon was losing patience with the negotiations and with his national security adviser. He thought Kissinger did not understand how Communists negotiated. Their method, the president claimed, was “to keep talking and to screw you behind your back while they are doing it. To them, this is a tactic to win, not to work out an agreement.”139 In Hanoi, they called this vua danh, vua dam, “fighting while talking.” Nixon was particularly agitated because antiwar protests had picked up in 1971 and because Congress was still bent on forcing an American withdrawal from Vietnam. On June 22, the US Senate passed the Mansfield Amendment, calling for a mandatory withdrawal of all US forces from Vietnam nine months after passage of the bill and an end to all American military operations following the release of US prisoners of war. Kissinger, according to Haldeman’s notes, “got very cranked up
about” the amendment because it dealt a blow “for his negotiations in Paris.”140 Kissinger called the amendment “the most irresponsible performance I have ever seen for public short-term political gains.”141
Even more disturbing to Nixon was the publication of what became known as the Pentagon Papers. Initiated by former secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara, who had served under presidents Kennedy and Johnson, the analysts who put the material together hoped to provide a history of decision making in Vietnam based on secret Defense Department documents. One of the analysts, Daniel Ellsberg, who had helped Kissinger prepare NSSM-1 and who had years of experience in Vietnam, had grown so disenchanted with the war that he approached a reporter at the New York Times, Neil Sheehan, with copies of the report. The papers confirmed what critics of the war had long been arguing, the US government had been lying to the American public about the conduct of the war for years.
Although the report stopped before Nixon’s tenure as president, he was still unsettled by the leak. He saw its publication as an affront to the presidency. Following publication of the first report in the Times in June 1971, the president asked the US federal courts to enjoin the New York Times from publishing any further reports, which it did immediately. The government’s injunction against the Times went before a Nixon-appointed judge, who questioned the paper’s patriotism. He granted the injunction, pending an evidentiary hearing. This order was the first time a federal court had stopped a press from reporting based on an issue of national security.142 The Washington Post also gained a copy of the top-secret report, forcing the Nixon administration to seek another injunction, this time in the nation’s capital. Eventually, the cases were combined and made their way to the US Supreme Court, where the justices—in a vote of six to three—denied the government the injunction, and the papers continued their publication of the Pentagon’s clandestine analysis.
Reckless: Henry Kissinger and the Tragedy of Vietnam Page 17