Pentagon Volumes on Diplomacy Show Neither U.S. Nor Hanoi Would Compromise

WASHINGTON, June 27 —The Pentagon papers volumes on the secret diplomacy of the Johnson Administration show that Hanoi and Washington could not reach a peace settlement because they could not compromise their basic disagreement over who would hold power in South Vietnam.

These four volumes of the secret history of the Indochina war reveal that Hanoi, despite mounting levels of punishment, was adamantly clinging to its long‐term objective of unifying Vietnam under a Communist form of government. The history shows Washington just as adamantly clinging to its objective of dividing Vietnam permanently into two states and preserving a non‐Communist South.

The history discloses no lack of contacts between the two sides or shortage of intermediaries to carry messages back and forth, and indicates that the oportunity for peace was missed for reasons of substance, not for want of diplomatic machinery.

When The New York Times Published its series of articles on the Pentagon papers last June and July, it did not possess these four volumes of the 47‐volume Pentagon study. A substantial part of these diploMade volumes has now been obtained by Jack Anderson, the syndicated columnist. A copy Was given to The Times at the request of The Lakeland Ledger, a Florida newspaper owned by The Times. The Ledger subscribes to Mr. Anderson's column.

Attitudes Clarified

The volumes on the negotiations begin with events in mid1964 and end with May of 1968, shortly after President Lyndon B. Johnson made possible the opening of the Paris talks by limiting the bombing of North Vietnam to the area south of the 20th Parallel and concurrently announced his decision not to seek another term.

The Pentagon history does not contain major revelations, but it does reveal much about the attitudes of both sides, the style of their diplomacy and why they could not reach a settlement. Among the major points are these:

¶While there may have been some misunderstanding, each side understood reasonably well what the other wanted. The problem was that neither side was willing to compromise on the basic substance of its position.

¶What misunderstanding did exist seems to have been essentially on the part of Washington, which apparently could not believe that the Vietnamese Communists would adhere to their basic objective under the rising level of punishment being inflicted by American military power.

¶Hanoi conducted relatively open diplomacy, saying virtually the same things in private that it did in public.

¶Hanoi was willing to compromise only to the extent of giving Washington a face‐saving method of withdrawal from the South and of postponing the achievement of its longterm objective for a few years by the formation of a supposedly neutralist regime in the South.

¶When Washington spoke publicly of negotiations, it usually meant, in private, the evolution of similar face‐saving means for Hanoi to halt the war in the South in exchange for an end to American bombing and ground intervention.

¶Hanoi did not attempt to use the peace movement in the United States as a channel for negotiations. Rather, it seems to have regarded the peace movement as evidence of a fundamental political weakness in American policy that would tell against Washington in the end.

¶Washington in turn tended not to take seriously non Communist intermediaries, such as Swedish officials who were critical of American policy in Vietnam.

¶The bombing in the North appears to have increased Hanoi's determination to achieve its basic objective of unifying Vietnam under its own leadership.

The unwillingness of the two sides compromise on basic, positions was evident in the reports on the first diplomatic contact made in June of 1964 through J. Blair Seaborn, the Canadian member of the International Control Commission for Vietnam, and on the first bombing pause, for five days in May of 1965, which was code‐named Mayflower by the State Department.

On June 18, 1964, more than six months before the first air attacks on the North, Mr. Seaborn orally conveyed a message from the Johnson Administration to Premier Pham Van Dong of North Vietnam, according to the history. The message was, according to the Pentagon account, that the United States was determined to preserve a non‐Communist South Vietnam and threatened North Vietnam with “the greatest devastation” if Hanoi did not halt the Vietcong guerrilla rebellion in the South and if the conflict intensified.

The Pentagon history says that Premier Dong “laughed and said he did indeed appreciate the problem.” He is reported to have replied that while North Vietnam will not provoke the U. S.,” apparently through overt intervention, Hanoi would continue to support the Vietcong and “We shall win.”

He is reported to have proposed as a “just solution” an American withdrawal from the South and the creation of a neutral regime there in accordance with the publicly an nounced program of the Vietcong.

Dean Rusk, who was then Secretary of State, is shown to have reflected Washington's attitude of no compromise on its essential demands in a conversation with the Soviet Ambassador, Anatoly F. Dobrynin, on May 11, 1965, at the outset of the Mayflower bombing pause.

Mr. Rusk noted, in a cablegram relating the conversation, which the Pentagon historians quote, that Mr. Dobrynin asked if the pause meant “any change in the fundamental U. S. posi tion.”

“I replied that it did not and that this should be no surprise,” Mr. Rusk is said to have written. The Soviet Union then refused to deliver to the North Vietnamese a secret message that amounted to an ultimatum to call off the Vietcong and withdraw from South Vietnam or face more American bombing.

The stiffening of the North Vietnamese determination that the escalation of the bombing seems to have caused, despite the constant hope of Washington that the pressure would force Hanoi to compromise its basic objective, is strikingly evident in remarks attributed to Premier Dong in conversation with two French scientists in My, 1967, when the bombing was at its height. The United States also had a force of 464,000 American combat troops in the South at that time.

The two scientists, Herbert Marcovich and Raymond Aubrac—Mr. Aubrac was a friend of the late President Ho Chi Minh—went to Hanoi as intermediaries for the Johnson Administration. Their mission was arranged and supervised by Henry A. Kissinger, then a Harvard professor and now President Nixon's adviser on national security.

U.S. Power Acknowledged

The message they carried to Hanoi was essentially the same as the earlier ones.

Premier Dong is quoted as having replied that Hanoi knew that “U.S. power is enormous and the U.S. Government wants to win the war.

“President Johnson is suffering from a pain and this pain is called South Vietnam,” he went as. “Therefore we think that attacks on the North are likely to increase. We have made provisions for attacks on our dikes; we are ready to accept war on our soil. Our military potential is growing because of aid from the U.S.S.R. and other socialist countries.”

“Now, I shall talk to you about negotiations and solutions,” Premier Dong is said to have continued. “We have been fighting for our independence for 4,000 years. We have defeated the Mongols three times. The United States Army, strong as it is, is not as terrifying as Genghis Khan.”

He again replied to Washington that the solution for the United States was to withdraw from South Vietnam and permit the establishment of a neutral regime there, according to the history.

To the extent they believed each other, the two sides were amply forewarned that a painful contest lay ahead,” the Pentagon historians write in their opening chapter on the secret diplomacy. “Even so, they were not inclined to compromise their way out.

“They held very different estimates of the efficacy of U.S. military might. We thought its pressures could accomplish our goals. The Communists did not.”