HANOI'S GAME AND CURRENT GAME PLAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01720R000400090005-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2004
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: December 21, 1972
• Content Type: MF

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MEMORANDUM FOR: Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs
SUBJECT : Hanoi's Game and Current Game Plan
1. To diagnose the strategy being employed in a game and estimate
the actions which pursuit of that strategy is likely to produce, it is
necessary to know what game is being played. It is also necessary to
know who the players are, or at least who is calling the plays. Applying
the game analogy to' the Vietnam negotiations leads one to speak of "Hanoi"
and "North Vietnam. " e.g. , "Hanoi's intentions," "North Vietnam's
objectives," etc., etc. In this context, "Hanoi" and "North Vietnam"
are shorthand labels for the Politburo of the Lao Dong Party -- a finite
group of eleven (possibly twelve) identifiable human beings who collectively
determine North Vietnam's policies, i . e . , determine that country's
game plan and call the signals for all of its major subordinate players.*
*The role of the Politburo, the way it does business and the types of
considerations that influence its individual members' decisions were
discussed in some detail in my 3 August 1972 memorandum entitled "Factors
Influencing the Decision-Making Process in Hanoi." That memorandum's
annex gives brief sketches of the individual Politburo members. There are
nine known surviving full members of the Politburo plus two known
alternates who some evidence indicates may have been recently promoted
to full membership. There is also evidence suggesting that Pham Hung's
COSVN Deputy Nguyen Van Linh may be a covert (undeclared) Politburo
member. If so, he would be the twelfth full member if both former alternates
Public Security Minister Tran Quoc Hoan and PAVN Chief of Staff General Van
Tien Dung -- have in fact been promoted to full membership, as is probably
the case.
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2. This collective of about a dozen top Party leaders is not a
monolith or unified persona. It is a Committee which has not had a
formal Chairman since Ho Chi Minh's death in September 1969. It appears
to operate by consensus, though this may not necessarily mean any rule
by arithmetic majority, since some of its members seem to be more equal
than others. It is patently subject to the stresses of conflicting personal
ambitions which complicate and compound genuine differences of opinion
over the wisdom or net advantage of alternative policies. At this writing,
these stresses may be fairly acute.
3. "Kremlinology" is an occult art, doubly dangerous when applied
by Westerners to North Vietnam, but there are at least two bits of evidence
presumptively indicative of some stress within the Politburo and perhaps
some recent shift of power relationships therein.
a. First, there is the fact that the two Politburo
members who went to Peking on 16 December and thence
to Moscow on 18 December -- almost certainly to touch
base with Hanoi's two major Communist patrons -- are
Truong Chinh and Hoang Van Hoan (the former Ambassador
to China). Truong Chinh has made several trips to East
Germany in recent years for health reasons (genuinely
so to the best of our knowledge), but he has not been
abroad on official business for more than a decade.
Furthermore, at least until last September, Le Duan -- not
Truong Chinh -- would have been the logical candidate
for this kind of top level and most important mission.
b. Secondly, there is the curious and still unexplained
Jean-Claude Pomonti story published in Le Monde on 25
November about an alleged crisis within the Viet Cong
ranks occasioned by (according to the story) a "coup"
attempt mounted on 12 November by an "extremist faction"
of the North Vietnamese Army opposed to negotiated
settlement. (In Pomonti's words, "the rebels ... were
'partisans of continuing the fight to the bitter end,' a line
which was allegedly supported by Le Duan, (Lao Dong)
general secretary. ") The story is almost certainly fictional.
but whoever passed it to Pomonti -- a rather careful
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journalist with good left wing contacts -- had a very
detailed knowledge of the VC/PRG structure and a flair
for superficially plausible verisimilitude. I know for a
certainty that this was not a U.S. psywar gambit. The
GVN has never before -- or since -- shown this much
wit, imagination or facility with telling and plausible detail.
Thus the story almost certainly came from a left-wing
source of considerable know ledge ability. It may have
been a ploy designed to encourage us to settle while the
"Politburo doves" still had tenuous control,' but it
smelled much more like a leak related somehow to
internecine squabbling within the Vietnamese Communist
movement.
4. It would be pointless to digress into bootless speculation about
what may or may not now be going on within the Lao Dong Politburo.
It is important to remember, however, that these dozen-odd very human
beings -- with their intricate web of interlocking relationships -- are the
ones who call Hanoi's signals and the ones whose collective decisions
will dictate North Vietnam's negotiating behavior. It is also important
to remember that the Poi~buro is a committee -- and hence subject to the
behavioral patterns of all committees.
II. HANOI'S GAME
5. The "Two-Game" Problem. Ever since the inception of the current
(i.e. , post-1954) phase of the Indochina struggle, U.S. efforts to negotiate
a settlement with the North Vietnamese have been plagued and complicated
by what might be called the "two-game" problem. Our negotiators and
theirs may have faced each other across the same table, literally or
metaphorically, but while we have been playing (say) chess, they have
been playing a Vietnamese version of "Go. " This has made it extraordinarily
difficult to agree on a common set of procedural rules, let alone keep score.
6. We have several primary interests, including (though not necessarily
in this order), a return of all U.S. prisoners, and disengagement of the U.S. from
direct combat participation in the struggle, with these objectives to be made possible
by a negotiated settlement which is reasonably fair to all parties involved and
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gives the GVN a reasonable chance to compete with the Communists in the political
arena. There is only one point, however, at which our concerns tangentially
touch Hanoi's -- the Vietnamese Communists also want to see U.S. disen-
gagement and an end to U.S. participation in the struggle, though (obviously)
for reasons quite different from ours. Hanoi has no intrinsic interest in
releasing its U.S. prisoners. They are a bargaining counter to be exchanged
for the highest possible price in terms of U.S. political concessions. Hanoi
has no interest in a settlement fair to all parties in the struggle, since a
genuinely "fair" settlement would spell the indefinite postponement or even
de facto abandonment of Hanoi's southern ambitions. For similar reasons,
Hanoi has a positive aversion to giving the GVN any reasonable chance
to survive or compete with the Communist Party. From Hanoi's perspective,
an optimum settlement would reduce that chance to zero; and Hanoi will
certainly endeavor to come as close as possible to that goal in any
settlement it negotiates with the U.S.
7. Our objective is a fair and reasonable negotiated settlement. Hanoi's
objective -- in the cracked-record refrain repeated in its 26 October statement is "to liberate the South, to defend and build the Socialist North, and to
proceed to the peaceful reunification of the country". Neither settlement
nor peace is viewed in Hanoi as a state or concept with over-riding intrinsic
merit. In certain contexts, either or both may be useful tactical devices
and, hence, at least temporarily desirable -- so long as they facilitate the
quest for ultimate total victory. If the Politburo should decide that a given
settlement would redound to the Party's net advantage in pursuing its
ultimate objective, the Politburo will agree to settle on those terms. If the
Politburo reaches a consensus that the net advantage runs the other way, there
will be no settlement.
8. This "net advantage" concept is by no means a simple one. At
several crucial points in the Party's history -- 1954 being the most notable
example -- "net advantage" has clearly translated as "least undesirable. "
Thus, should the Politburo decide that the probable consequences -- no
matter how unpalatable -- of accepting a far from ideal settlement are less
disadvantageous than the probable consequences of continuing the struggle
in its present form, the Politburo (grudgingly and reluctantly) would decide
to settle. The key to Politburo action here, however, and the ultimate
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determinant of its decision, will be its assessment of where the Party's
net advantage lies. Such an assessment will have to be thrashed out in
detailed debate among the Politburo's current members, none of whom
considers settlement as an end desirable in itself. Thus the "two-game"
problem remains: We are questing for a reasonable negotiated settlement.
Hanoi is questing for a situation most likely to facilitate, or least likely to
hinder, its dogged pursuit of ultimate victory.
9. The September 1972 Situation. The details of Hanoi's decision-
making over the past six plus months are murky. - Hanoi's post-Septenibe'r
behavior nonetheless indicates that by late August or early September, the
Politburo had decided that a major shift in strategy was desirable or (perhaps)
necessary. Such evidence as is available suggests that the Politburo found
the total situation then prevailing to be unacceptable, at least in the sense
that the Politburo was unwilling to see an indefinite continuation of that
situation or the trends then discernible therein. On the ground in South
Vietnam, the military offensive launched on 30 March had scored few advances
since its initial weeks. Despite heavy and continuing Communist casualties,
the overall tide of battle was running the wrong way. The GVN's position --
including its control over both population and territory -- showed signs of
improving over time rather than deteriorating. North Vietnam's ports were
closed and its territory subjected to aerial (and naval) pounding more
severe than anything heretofore experienced. Though not actually disaffected,
its people were showing signs of fatigue and stress, more susceptible than
ever before (or so the Politburo clearly feared) to the blandishments of a
heightened allied psychological warfare effort. Though the overland
logistic support arrangements eventually worked out by Hanoi's Russian and
Chinese patrons may have been deemed arithmetically sufficient, Hanoi
was certainly not blind to the troubling implications of the way Moscow
and Peking had responded -- or not responded -- to U.S. actions, particularly
after 8 May. In the U.S. , the anti-war movement's political impact was
unimpressive and President Nixon's re-election chances appeared to be
improving to the point of near certainty. An unchanged situation hence
held -- at a minimum -- the risk of four more years of an unfettered President
Nixon diminishing U.S. participation in the struggle in his way and on his
terms, working in close, undisturbed partnership with a GVN whose position
seemed unlikely to worsen and more than likely to improve incrementally
and steadily over time. The situation then existing also held the clear risk
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of an indefinite pounding of North Vietnam by the U.S., whose actions
seemed unlikely to provoke more than benign neglect in Moscow or Peking,
despite the physical assistance these essential allies might (or might not)
be willing to furnish Hanoi.
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10. To all members of the Politburo, this must have been a rather
bleak and unacceptable prospect. It had to be changed and, hence, something
had to give. In the event, what "gave" was some of Hanoi's heretofore adamant
inflexibility in the negotiating arena. Again, one'has to be cautious in
second-guessing Hanoi's .decisions or the operative arguments that prompted
them. Nonetheless, it certainly looks as if a decision was made to probe in
the negotiating arena to see what situational improvements might be thereby obtainable.
We do not know Hanoi's private priority order of desires, nor do we know the
price it was (or is) prepared to pay for its immediate tactical objectives.
It is fairly evident, however, that Hanoi wanted an end to physical punishment
of the north, U.S. disengagement from direct participation in the struggle,
and a curtailment -- ideally rupture -- of U.S. support to the GVN. For
this Hanoi was prepared to offer the return of U.S. prisoners, the dropping
of its insistence on ' 'hieu's immediate resignation and the dropping of its
concomitant insistence on U.S. acceptance of (or assistance in) the immediate
imposition on South Vietnam of a coalition government under de facto
Communist domination.
11. To understand Hanoi's game it is essential to understand that by
early September Hanoi had not necessarily decided to negotiate a settlement.
Instead, it had probably decided to see if the then current situation -- i . e . the
totality of pressures to which Hanoi was then subject -- could be alleviated or
improved through probes in the negotiating arena. The Politburo would of
course have recognized that these probes and the modifications in Hanoi's pre-
vious negotiating position they embodied might lead to a negotiated settlement,
but the key to understanding Hanoi.~',s subsequent behavior is an appreciation of
the fact that the Politburo's objective was to improve the situation -- not to seek
a settlement as an end in itself.
12. Even this degree of movement, however, reflected a major shift in
Politburo thinking -- and, almost certainly, in Politburo priorities. Hanoi
had never before been willing to discuss a settlement that did not include a
coalition government and Thieu's removal from office. Now it was going to
discuss and was even prepared to countenance a settlement that left the
GVN at least temporarily intact with Thieu at its head. Any such settlement
involved a degree. of risk for the southern struggle that Le Duan, at least,
had always been adamantly unwilling to incur. Hanoi's willingness to move
this far therefore strongly suggests a Politburo decision that a point had been
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reached where pressures on the North had to be alleviated even at the price of
jeopardizing the southern struggle's prospects. This is a policy it is hard to
envisage Le Duan as endorsing, particularly since he had vetoed its adoption
in previous years when the Communist position in the South relative to the GVN
was much stronger and, hence, this policy could have been purused with far
less risk to the southern struggle. Thus, one possible and viable interpretation
of Hanoi's post-September actions is that Le Duan was outvoted or overruled -- a
possibility that lends added interest to the developments cited above in paragraph 3.
13. Once again, however, a word of caution is essential. Hanoi's'
post-September actions do not indicate any abandonment of the Party's southern
ambitions, far from it. They simply suggest a Politburo determination that,
for the time being at least, precedence had to be given to protection of the
North -- in communist parlance, the "great rear" whose support (hence
ability to provide it) is essential to pursuit of the liberation struggle in the
South.. In any Politburo debate leading to adoption of this ordering of
priorities, the proponents of this policy would certainly have assured and
promised their colleagues that in pursuing it the Party would bend every
effort to protect the Party's southern interests and prospects to the maximum
extent feasible.
14. The Developments of September and October.* Against, I
strongly suspect, a backdrop roughly approximating that speculatively sketched
above, during September and October Hanoi's negotiators engaged in a dialogue
that produced the 20 October draft of the "Agreement on Ending the War and
Restoring Peace in Vietnam". From Hanoi's standpoint, this document was
certainly far from ideal. It left the GVN intact with Thieu in office -- i.e.
left in being the strongest opposition the Communists had ever had to face in
South Vietnam. Furthermore, in it the concept of coalition government was
reduced to a pale shadow in the unanimity-rule hobbled tri-partite National
Council of National Reconciliation and Concord (though the shadow was paler
in the English text than in the Vietnamese). Nonetheless , the 20 October draft
also held a number of attractions for Hanoi. It ended the pressure on the North
and got the U.S. militarily disengaged from the struggle. Its language was quite
*From this point on, my analysis of Communist behavior and -- by inference
therefrom -- intentions is offered with great diffidence. Its evidential base
is conversations with you supplemented by the portions of the written record
you have asked me to examine -- plus the Communists' public statements and
the covert reporting we have relayed to you. The problem is, of course, that
I am offering for your consideration judgments based on a record of which I
have only a sketchy knowledge but which you know in complete detail.
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specific and reasonably precise with respect to U.S. obligations but vague
and ambiguous (hence minimally constricting) with.respect to Communist
obligations. Its inspection and supervision provisions were no more onerous
than similar provisions in the 1954 Geneva Accords which Hanoi had easily
evaded for almost two decades. It committed the U.S. to aiding in the recon-
struction of the North. Above all, it also committed the U.S. -- formally and
in writing -- to a basic juridical position that had always constituted the
foundation of Hanoi's rationale and justification for its effort to conquer the
South: The position that the 17th parallel is not an international boundary
(even temporarily) and that there is legally only one Vietnam.*
15. ? To Hanoi, the 20 October draft agreement had two further merits
not directly embodied in its language: The draft had been negotiated without
GVN participation or detailed knowledge -- something Hanoi knew was bound
to be translated in Saigon as having been negotiated "behind the GVN's back".
Furthermore, Hanoi must have known that Thieu would be unable and unwilling
to accept some of the provisions and language of the 20 October draft, which
Thieu was bound to regard as tantamount to accepting political suicide. Hanoi
thus had every reason to anticipate that when he learned of the 20 October draft's
contents, Thieu would adamantly refuse to concur in signing it. Hence
the draft itself would help corrode relations between Saigon and Washington
in a way that would prej.idice U.S. willingness (if not ability) to provide the
GVN with continued full support and backing.
16. During the course of the October negotiations, another element
entered the equation -- timing. The proposed 31 October target date fit per-
fectly into Hanoi's overall game plan. It raised the possibility of an agreement
rushed to completion and signature. To Hanoi, such a forced draft schedule
offered several potential advantages: First, the Politburo probably believed
that the chance of getting significant concessions out of the Americans (or
slipping such concessions by them) would be greater in the weeks just before
Presidential election than they would be once the U.S. Government was freed
from election pressures and preoccupations. Hanoi knew how much it had
profited for eighteen years from the hasty drafting of the 1954 Geneva Accords,
which were cobbled together in final, agreed form under the pressure of
*The points here covered in summary form are examined in more detail in my
30 October 1972 memorandum entitled "Lacunae in the Draft Agreement" and my
4 November 1972 memorandum entitled "The Current Situation's Potentialities
for 'Surrender' or 'Victory'"
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Pierre Mendes-France's self imposed 30-day deadline. Second, and perhaps
even more important, U.S. acquiescence in such a compressed schedule would
be certain to intensify and exacerbate Thieu's negative reaction to the 20 October
draft, which would have to be presented for his almost immediate concurrence --?
and Hanoi well knows that Thieu resists rushing, or being rushed, into anything.
Furthermore, Hanoi seems to have believed that the record contained elements --
statements you made at the table (or suitably exerpted portions thereof) and/or
messages sent from Washington to Hanoi--that could be cited and played at the
proper time to "prove" the U.S. had accepted both the 20 October draft and the
31 October timetable before Thieu was consulted about either. Thus, a situation
had been structured that Hanoi could exploit to gravely impair -- if not actually
rupture -- the bond between Washington and Saigon that Hanoi deemed it es-
sential to break.
17. On 22 October, another development occurred which Hanoi must
have regarded as yet another windfall: the U.S. unilaterally cut the bombing
back to the 20th parallel. We intended this as a gesture of good will offered
to improve the climate for fruitful negotiations. The Vietnamese Communist
Party, however, does not construe or respond to gestures of this sort in any
such spirit. To the Politburo, such a gesture from an adversary is an appetite-
whetting sign of weakness on the latter's part and a tactical opportunity to
be immediately exploited. Remember that the Politburo'L7 basic objective is
not settlement er se but an improvement in the situation which faced the Party
in September and a relief from the totality of pressures to which the Party was
then subject. The curtailment in the bombing greatly eased one of those
critical pressures -- an easing for which Hanoi had not yet paid much, if
anything, beyond civility at the negotiating table. With the bombing eased, the
Politburo had more breathing room, and wiggle room.
18. All of the above set the stage for Hanoi's 26 October announcement
which, in turn, laid down a tactical gambit Hanoi is still pursuing. That
announcement -- publicly surfacing much that had not yet been divulged to
the American people or Congress, or the GVN -- was part of an attempted
force play that Hanoi has not yet abandoned. Hanoi is trying to drive the U.S.
to the table at the earliest possible moment to sign, unchanged, the 20 October
draft as an acceptable (even if not ideal) document from the standpoint of its
interests. Hanoi's current political action gambit, however, is not keyed to the
intrinsic merits (from Hanoi's viewpoints) of that draft's language. Instead,
Hanoi's current course of action almost certainly derives from a Politiburo
determination that the' draft itself -- plus alleged U.S. agreement thereto --
has become a propaganda/political action vehicle that can be profitably
exploited to embarrass the U.S., undercut the GVN, poison relationships
between Washington and Saigon and generally improve Hanoi's Vietnam and
Indochina prospects.
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19. November and December. If we look at the current situation from
the perspective just described, Hanoi's negotiating behavior during November
and December not only makes'sense, it was almost inevitable. Hanoi wants to
(a) break the bond between the U.S. and the GVN and (b) place squarely
on the U.S. any onus for blighting hopes or prospects of an early "peace, "
from which other desirable benefits would presumably flow -- including
a prompt return of American prisoners. Thus Hanoi wants to keep the
negotiating dialogue open but exploit it to support the Politburo's overall
effort to force the U.S. to accept the 20 October draft unchanged.
20. Hanoi was doubtless disappointed to see the 31 October timetable
go askew, along with formal signing plans related thereto. When the private
negotiating sessions reconvened on 20 November, Hanoi's initial desire was
probably to probe to see whether the U.S. considered this a pro-forma
session whose purpose would be largely cosmetic or if we were really intent
on further serious bargaining, including the modification of some aspects of
the 20 October draft. The slight chill in the tonal atmosphere noticeable
after 22 November was probably occasioned -- at least partially -- by a
realization that you and your colleagues had come to transact further serious
business. By then, of course, the Politburo would have also gotten its
reading -- from open and covert sources -- on your visit to Saigon and
the state of U.S. /GVN relations. This information was p obably digested
by the Politburo, and at least preliminary word relayed to Le Duc Tho -- in the
shape of information and/or modified instructions -- while your November
sessions were in progress. Tho's instructions were probably to be
personally cordial, keep the conversational ball bouncing, but to stonewall
on any material changes in the 20 October draft and keep steering you
back to it by every possible tactic -- including that of matching you (or
better) change for proposed change.
21. The December sessions were probably guided (on Le Duc Tho's
part) by similar instructions and I would suspect that they followed a roughly
analogous pattern -- personal warmth accompanied by steadily increasing
bargaining toughness. Tho probably wanted (or was instructed) to make
you think "peace" was almost "within reach," but to keep it out of reach
unless you were willing to go back and formally sign the 20 October draft,
without change. My reading of the transcript of the final, 13 December meeting
certainly suggests that the outrageous protocols, the metaphysical discussions,
the Loi nitpicks that Tho urbanely tabled, etc. , etc., were all designed to
convince you that any. further U.S., endeavor to tinker with the 20 October
draft's Vietnamese or English texts would inevitably open an endless series
of Pandora's boxes.
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22. In sum, Hanoi's game is not settlement per se but situational
improvement -- in which, of course, the right kind of settlement (from Hanoi's
standpoint) can obviously play a key role. Hanoi's current gambit is almost
certainly that of trying to force the U.S. back to accepting the 20 October
draft -- not so much because of that draft's intrinsic merits as because, in
light of all that has happened in the intervening two months, a U.S.
acquiesence in that draft now or in the near future would have a profound
impact on the whole Vietnam situation that Hanoi believes would redound
very much to its net political advantage.
III. HANOI'S CURRENT GAME PLAN ? .
23. At this writing, the Politburo is doubtless engaged in a serious,
urgent review of the bidding necessitated by our resumption of bombing
north of the 20th Parallel. In some ways, the situation has been returned to
that existing in late September -- though of course the djins let out of the bottle
by the past two month's negotiating developments have not been and cannot
.be recorked.
24. Given the fact that the Politburo is a committee -- possibly one without
a real chairman -- plus the fact that committees find it very hard to agree on
decisive new courses of action .even when new actions are patently mandatory,
I suspect the Politburo will try to temporize, at least for the time being. It
will want to see what political impact the resumed bombing -- and the B-52
loss rate -- plus the postponement of prospects of early settlement (and returning
prisoners) has within the United States, particularly after Congress reconvenes.
Hanoi's initial, instinctive response, hence, will probably be to hunker down
and stand pat on its game plan until it sees whether the U.S. can politically
sustain its new course of action. Hanoi may try to step up the pace of military
activity within South Vietnam as a retaliatory gesture that might also
have political impact by projecting an image of Communist resilience in the
face of adversity. Here, however, the Politburo would have some nice
calculations to make. It has long planned to utilize its military capabilities
in South Vietnam to improve the Communists' political /territorial control
position in the south on the eve of any cease-fire's implementation. The
Communists got burned once by jumping the gun in October and they
may be reluctant to commit now assets they feel might be needed in the not too
distant future.
25. If Hanoi decides the resumed U.S. pressure is not a short-shot
affair but looks likely to continue for an indeterminate period, the Politburo
will have to make some different, tougher calculations. It will have to consider
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the new situation's, and the renewed bombing's, total impact -- not just the
physical impact but the impact on the morale, will and determination of the
North Vietnamese people, the Party organization and the Party's troops
and followers in the south.
26. The Sino-Soviet Dimension. Much of the basic debate over the
shape and form of a negotiated settlement revolves around one central issue --
the juridical question of whether there is one Vietnam or, for the time
being, two nations divided at the 17th Parallel. This issue is central to both
Vietnamese protagonists. If Hanoi succeeds in insisting that a final
settlement agreement explicitly endorse the one-nation concept, it knows
it will have an agreement vindicating its basic rationale for southern intervention,
plus an agreement that Thieu almost certainly cannot and will not sign
(with all the political and other consequences thereby entailed). Conversely,
if Hanoi were to accept an agreement explicitly embodying the two-nation
concept -- or even an agreement that does not explicitly endorse the' one-
nation concept -- the Communists would have suffered a major defeat,
undisguiseable as such throughout Indochina.
27. In this sphere, however, Hanoi is extremely vulnerable to pressure
from its Soviet and Chinese allies. There are, as Hanoi is acutely aware,
three divided countries -- Korea, Germany and Vietnam. North Korea --
which shares common borders with both China and the Soviet Union -- long
maintained a doctrinal position essentially similar to that now stridently
advocated by Hanoi. But without any outward sign of Soviet or Chinese
objection -- indeed, quite the reverse -- even Kim II-sung has become a
revisionist- apostate, has accepted South Korea's existence as a fact of life,
and is now engaged in serious dialogue with President Park. 'Germany --
to Hanoi -- is an even worse parallel; for here it is the Soviets who have always
insisted on the "two-nation" concept. Recent U.S. acceptance of that concept
in Germany provides a clear opening for discussion of reciprocal Soviet
behavior with respect to Vietnam. Furthermore, Hanoi cannot have forgotten
that on 24 January 1957 the Soviets formally proposed that North and South
Vietnam both be admitted to the UN as two separate countries. Protecting
the juridical/doctrinal position here involved is a major object of Hanoi's
game plan and a major reason why the Politburo wants us to sign, unchanged,
the 20 October draft agreement. But the Politburo must be haunted by the
realization that in light of all other aspects of the current situation, this
juridical/doctrinal position would be hard to sustain -- particularly as a
major impediment to settlement and peace-- if Hanoi's stand should not be
politically supported by its two major Communist patrons.
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28. Conclusion. Hanoi's political and propaganda force play keyed
to the 20 October draft has now been countered by our resumption of the bombing.
At a minimum, this new situation will make the Politburo reconsider its
game plan. The major strategy decision of whether to stick to that plan or
revise it -- with concomitant revisions in Hanoi's negotiating posture -- has
probably not yet been made. It will probably not be made until Hanoi gauges
our political ability to sustain the resumed and intensified bombing program,
its physical and psychological impact on the situation on the ground in
both North and South Vietnam, and the extent of support or backing for its
adamant negotiating stance that Hanoi can anticipate from China and the , ,
Soviet Union. Unless the Politburo has made some prior decision to modify
its negotiating position promptly if we reinstitute full scale bombing (an
unlikely hypothesis with no supporting evidence of which I am aware),
Hanoi's outward behavior is not likely to change until the Politburo has
debated and framed these collective estimates. Given the fact that the
Politburo is a committee, this process is likely to take time, particularly
since the relative positions and powers of the Politburo's members may
themselves be affected by the course of recent events or the outcome of these
debates. The time in question will probably be measured at least in weeks.
Given the nature of the issues involved plus their complexity, the number
of weeks required could easily stretch into two or three months. Until
this process of debate and assessment is completed, however, the Politburo's
own members would probably find it difficult to predict with confidence
just what Hanoi's new game plan will be.
George A. Carver, Jr.
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