Peace, POWs, and Power: Reflections on the Vietnam War

By George J. Veith

Acclaimed Vietnam War historian George J. Veith, the author of Code-Name Bright Light, Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, and Drawn Swords in a Distant Land, provides profound new understandings of three critical aspects of the Vietnam War: the struggle to achieve peace, the difficulties in attaining the fullest possible accounting for American POW/MIAs, and the untold courage of our South Vietnamese allies. Peace, POWs, and Power: Reflections on the Vietnam War collects scholarship created over the last twenty-five years to reveal how Hanoi's and Saigon's secret policies caused the peace between North and South Vietnam to fail, highlights how Hanoi manipulated the POW/MIA issue, and illuminates how our South Vietnamese allies were unfairly maligned. Using previously untapped primary sources, Veith offers compelling insights into how Hanoi manipulated the peace to achieve victory, how it continues to withhold valuable information on the fate of missing American servicemen, and how the South Vietnamese fought to build a non-communist country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: www.thangtuden.info
• Release date: Jan 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9781312280106

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INTRODUCTION

People often ask how I became involved in the POW/MIA issue and in studying the broader Vietnam War. I have always been fascinated by historical mysteries, and the question of whether American servicemen had been deliberately held captive by Hanoi after the war’s end intrigued me. When pictures unexpectedly appeared in 1991 showing Americans allegedly still detained in Laos, the Senate formed a select committee to investigate. Although they found no concrete evidence that Americans remained captive, my curiosity suddenly had a vehicle. As I studied the issue, however, it soon became apparent that to better understand the POW/MIA issue, I needed to better understand the war.

Over the years, I have written papers for conferences, articles for publication, and numerous book reviews in journals. A large part of that corpus is presented here. I have delivered other papers as well, but often they were created on PowerPoint for ease of speaking in front of an audience. I have not included them in this volume.

The first section deals with the Paris Peace Accords. Each paper provides details from the Vietnamese sides rather than from the American perspective. The first paper was presented on May 13, 2008, at the conference War, Diplomacy and Opinion: The Paris Peace Negotiations on Ending the War in Vietnam (1968–1975). It was held in Paris to recognize the fortieth anniversary of the Paris accords. ¹ The second paper was presented at a Vietnam War conference held in Prato, Italy, by Monash University on October 10, 2013. Luckily, I met two wonderful scholars at that conference, Dr. Nathalie Nguyen and Dr. Noah Riseman, who later become advisors for my PhD dissertation. This paper was later published in a condensed version in Vietnam magazine. ²

The second section deals with the POW/MIA issue, a subject I have studied for thirty years.

The paper on the 1205 document was published online on March 5, 1998. It was an attempt to authenticate the still contentious Russian document that claimed to be a speech by a senior People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) general to the North Vietnamese Politburo in late 1972. The speaker indicated that Hanoi was holding far more U.S. prisoners than it had acknowledged or that U.S. intelligence believed were being held captive. The U.S. government quickly analyzed it and dismissed it as the speaker’s statistics did not match the number of men who were later released in 1973. Since the document was discovered and publicized during the lead up to the Clinton administration’s effort to restore diplomatic relations with Vietnam, the U.S. government was keen to dismiss it rapidly so as not to derail those efforts. The Russian document, though, deserved more analysis, which I have attempted.

The paper on POWs and politics was coauthored with Garnett Bill Bell and was presented at the conference After the Cold War: Reassessing Vietnam held on April 19, 1996, at the Center for the Study of the Vietnam Conflict at Texas Tech University (TTU). Bell had been the U.S. government’s foremost POW/MIA investigator after the war. Fluent in Vietnamese, he had the distinction of being the last officially assigned American to the Republic of Vietnam to get onto a helicopter on the roof of the U.S. embassy on the morning of April 30, 1975 (a contingent of Marine guards were the last to depart, but they were not assigned to the embassy). Moreover, he was the first U.S. government official assigned to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) when Hanoi permitted Washington to establish a small office to search for American MIAs. This paper eventually led to us writing his memoirs, Leave No Man Behind: Bill Bell and the Search for American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam War.

The third paper in this section was presented on April 16, 1999, at the Third Triennial Vietnam Symposium at Texas Tech University. Texas Tech’s Vietnam Center has rapidly become the premier nongovernment archive and study center for the war.

The third section comprises four articles and papers about the war. The first, which details the heroic stand of the 18th ARVN Division in April 1975 at the town of Xuan Loc on the outskirts of Saigon, heralded my entrance into studying the South Vietnamese wartime experience. At one of the TTU conferences, I had met Colonel Edward Metzner, who regaled me with tales of Le Minh Dao, an ARVN officer whom he greatly admired. ³ Metzner’s fascinating stories of Dao’s leadership and courage, and my subsequent discovery than the battle for Xuan Loc had not been adequately reviewed, convinced me to seek out Dao to write this story. The article was coauthored with Merle Pribbenow, whose Vietnamese translation skills proved indispensable. It was published in the renowned Journal of Military History in the January 2004 issue. Dao, upon reading the final draft, implored me to write a history of the last two years of the war. That conversation was the genesis for my book Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973–75, a military history of how South Vietnam was defeated. ⁴

The second article in this section details the life of my departed friend Nguyen Tu, South Vietnam’s premier war correspondent. Tu, one of the most fascinating people I have ever met, allowed me to interview him nine times over the course of a year. His personal history mirrored the extraordinary efforts of the noncommunists to build their vision of Vietnam. His life was fraught with difficulties, ameliorated by his humble persona that masked a man of stunning courage. I wanted to write his story for many years, but it was not until I had finished my last two books and my dissertation that I had time to complete it. Writing about Nguyen Tu was a labor of love.

The third was a paper presented at The Australian Chief of Army’s History Conference, held on October 14, 2005, in Canberra. The Australian army held an annual history conference on different topics to gain lessons from scholars on military conflicts. The 2005 conference was dedicated to coalition warfare, and one of the sponsors, Dr. Jeffery Grey, asked me to compare the U.S. advisory effort in Vietnam with that of Iraq, particularly since Australia was rapidly becoming deeply involved in training efforts in that country. ⁵

The last article was published in the Spanish language magazine Desperta Ferro in November–December 2014. It was part of a series of articles by scholars on the antiwar movement.

Section 4 is a collection of book reviews plus two papers I delivered at events. Speaking at the launch of Lan Cao’s book The Lotus and the Storm was particularly emotional. Her book was a fictionalized version of her childhood in Saigon with her famous father, General Cao Van Vien, the head of South Vietnam’s military. General Vien, who was notoriously reluctant to speak about the war, allowed me to interview him several times, both in person and on the phone after he became too incapacitated to travel. Over time, we grew close, and his death in January 2008 was a blow. Her book came out in 2014, but the launch did not happen until late 2016.

The second was a short paper that I presented at a conference put together by Dr. Mark Moyar, a renowned Vietnam scholar who at that time was working for the prestigious CSIS institute in Washington. Moyar gathered a handful of scholars to review and debate the recently aired Ken Burns film on Vietnam. Held on September 29, 2017, most on the panel found the Burns film wanting. For those wishing to review it, the panel can be seen on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HfLCMEkrz8.

Although I have lightly edited each article to improve the flow and clarity, they remain virtually intact from the originals. Each represented in-depth research and effort, and in reviewing them in total, I found that they had, for the most part, stood the test of time. They also showcase my evolution as a writer and a historian of the Vietnam War. More importantly, I hope you, the reader, find them enlightening, opening aspects of the war that you may not have considered or known. The goal of every historian is not to repeat what happened but to inform as to why it happened and, ultimately, what it all meant.

PART I

THE PARIS PEACE ACCORDS

1

THE POLITBURO AND THE PARIS PEACE ACCORDS

THE DECISIONS FOR WAR, PEACE, AND THE RETURN TO WAR, JUNE 1971–JUNE 1973

The spectacular failure of the January 1973 Paris Peace Accords, which finally collapsed when North Vietnamese armored columns poured into Saigon on 30 April 1975, has spawned numerous articles and books attempting to plumb Nixon’s and Kissinger’s strategy and goals. Moreover, within the last five years, much U.S. government documentation has been released and scrutinized. Although no consensus on American policy among scholars has emerged, the Paris Accords continues to generate intense debate.

Less well-understood are the motives, strategies, and policies of the North Vietnamese Politburo. Although the Communist Party has published books by several participants, most notably Luu Van Loi’s Le Duc Tho-Kissinger Negotiations in Paris, along with several official document collections, many of the primary sources remain locked in Hanoi’s archives. Enough has been released, however, to discern a faint outline of what transpired during those turbulent times. What did the Politburo hope to accomplish with the 1972 offensive? Why did Hanoi decide to sign the agreement? What events or policies drove the return to war? Who supported each decision, and why? This paper seeks to explain that process, relying on the above-mentioned North Vietnamese publications. The result is a discovery that the Politburo, years before the signing, had carefully thought-out its options and weighed the likely scenarios for the culmination of a peace treaty. As events played out, it followed that path, albeit with a few detours and setbacks. After the signing, the Politburo again evaluated its options. It then decided to abandon the Paris Peace Accords much earlier than has ever been acknowledged.

Launching the 1972 Offensive – The Decision for War

After the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) defeated the South Vietnamese incursion into southern Laos in early 1971, the Politburo believed that its armed forces had obtained an overall superiority. Hanoi decided in May 1971 to launch a major offensive in early 1972 to achieve final victory. The Politburo resolved to develop our strategic offensive posture in South Vietnam to defeat the American ‘Vietnamization’ policy, gain a decisive victory in 1972, and force the U.S. imperialists to negotiate an end to the war from a position of defeat. ¹ Militarily, the objectives were to annihilate a number of enemy regimental task forces and brigades; to render entire puppet regular divisions combat ineffective…to move our main force units back into the various battlefields of South Vietnam…and to provide direct support for mass popular movements that would conduct attacks and uprisings to destroy the pacification program in the rural lowlands. ²

Once the military goals of destroying pacification and defeating Vietnamization were realized, Hanoi’s political goals would be easier to achieve. President Nguyen Van Thieu would be deposed, permitting the formation of a tri-party political coalition with the Communists and neutralists. This transitional government would banish the Americans and join with the North to reunify the country. The Politburo remained dedicated to the twin policies that Ho Chi Minh had earlier and famously encapsulated in a single slogan: fight to get the Americans out, fight to make the puppets collapse. This was the key strategy pared down to its essence.

The offensive was also timed to coincide with the U.S. presidential elections, hoping that the Americans, under the pressure of a political campaign, would offer greater concessions to settle the war. It was the resolution of Hanoi’s fight-talk strategy; exert maximum military pressure and win a major victory, then offer a settlement on its terms when the U.S. was desperate for an agreement.

Although the Politburo in 1971 had secretly embarked on preparations for a new round of fighting, its diplomats continued to discuss a settlement with the Americans. No progress was made, as Hanoi was not interested in a compromise. In early July 1971, General Secretary Le Duan sent a cable to Le Duc Tho and Xuan Thuy in Paris outlining the continuation of his two primary policies: In our diplomatic struggle against the enemy, we should concentrate our efforts…to create powerful pressure within the United States, and even inside the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, to force Nixon to make a clear and final decision to withdraw American troops from South Vietnam… We must pull the Saigon puppet government down a peg and force the U.S. to put forward a government that is able to talk to us. ³

In October 1971 the American government offered new initiatives to re-start the stalled negotiations. The Politburo rebuffed the advance and declined to offer a counterproposal. It sent the following analysis to its Paris delegation: Time is not on the enemy’s side. That is why the U.S. wants a quick resolution, so that they can reduce the difficulties they are facing. However, we will not simply passively follow their lead. On the contrary, we must take the initiative and select the proper opportunity to achieve our own strategic intentions. ⁴

The PAVN spent the remainder of 1971 incorporating sizeable quantities of new Soviet and Chinese equipment. Supplies were stockpiled, and significant air defenses were moved close to South Vietnam to protect its growing legions. Confident in its greatly increased strength, by March 1972 the Central Committee passed Resolution 20, which officially endorsed the massive assault. The important decree concluded that: 1972 is an extremely important year in our struggle against the enemy. It is important on all three fronts: military, political, and diplomatic. The balance of forces and the strategic position on all battlefields is steadily changing in our favor. We now face a favorable opportunity to make a powerful advance in our resistance war. ⁵

Despite the veneer of Party and decision-making consensus the Vietnamese like to project, the judgment to launch the attack was not unanimous. Le Duc Tho admitted to the French Communist Party that the decision was finally made only as a result of a majority vote. ⁶ One of the Politburo members who was against the offensive was Senior General Vo Nguyen Giap. The French party representative in Hanoi reported to his colleagues that Giap had reservations about the attack. Giap had expressed concerns over North Vietnam’s ability to adequately supply its southern troops, a worry that later would prove prescient. At the time, however, it was widely held that Giap had strongly pushed for the offensive. Only in June 2007 did a researcher verify that Giap had in fact contested it. Giap’s official biographer, Senior Colonel Tran Trong Trung, confirmed that Giap had opposed the plan but had gone along for the sake of unity. ⁷

Who then, had urged an attack? All evidence points to Le Duan as the chief proponent. The French party representative in Hanoi outlined how the majority Politburo viewpoint believed that once PAVN forces surrounded Saigon, the political cadre, with the foreign press, will be able to bring the population…in favor of Hanoi. The main purpose was to achieve Thieu’s departure. He, and he alone, stands in the way of the implementation of our plans. ⁸ Thieu, much like Ngo Dinh Diem before him, was viewed by the Politburo as the glue holding South Vietnam together. If Thieu was removed, Vietnamization, and in turn the governmental structure, would disintegrate.

This was precisely Le Duan’s viewpoint. Shortly before the start of the offensive, he provided the COSVN military commanders his views on the evolution of events in 1972. He foresaw two possibilities, each having two phases. First, after his armies had inflicted a serious defeat on South Vietnamese forces, the Thieu regime will be thrown into an extremely deep political crisis. ⁹ The people would then rise up and demand peace and an end to the war, with various factions jousting for power. Thieu would be overthrown, and a transitional government would arise that would quickly join with the Communists.

In the second scenario, and again after having badly damaged the South Vietnamese military and with Thieu gone, a transitional government would form, but one which was less willing to follow our requirements. A situation of two parallel governments would arise in South Vietnam. If that occurred, Hanoi would then fight to replace this transitional government in order to form…a national democratic coalition government that meets our requirements.

For Le Duan, victory would come primarily from two factors: battlefield success and political agitation among the people. By shattering the bulk of Thieu’s army and developing mass political support from the grass-roots level to the urban intelligentsia, Le Duan hoped to create such chaos that the South Vietnamese government would collapse under a wave of protests and military mutinies. It was Marxist dogma grafted onto Vietnamese circumstances. Diplomacy, while supporting the battlefield, would be a secondary theater.

This was not unusual. Most Politburo members saw diplomacy as playing a secondary role in ending the war. Diplomacy was the final seal to cement the successes it had won through its military and political struggles. Some in the Politburo might have put a heavier emphasis on diplomacy than others or might have been satisfied with Le Duan’s second outcome, but the perspective was relative to the individual. None of them, however, believed they were losing the war, or in turn thought that they could win an absolute military victory that would drive the Americans into the sea. The idea of an interim settlement, a fig leaf covering a negotiated surrender of the Republic of Vietnam, was viewed as the more attainable goal. Get the U.S. out, and the puppets would easily collapse. Or so it thought.

Yet if Le Duan dealt in Marxist liturgy, his right-hand man, Le Duc Tho, was more pragmatic. On the eve of the offensive, Le Duc Tho also sent a cable summing up the Politburo’s analysis of the current situation, and how he viewed future events unfolding. According to Tho, the Politburo was supremely confident. Victory over South Vietnam seemed assured. The withdrawal of U.S. forces had crushed South Vietnamese morale. The loss of American firepower and combat troops had left the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF) quantitatively weaker. In a letter to the southern commanders detailing the Politburo’s overall analysis, Le Duc Tho wrote: The number of deserters is steadily rising, the supply of replacements has not been able to keep pace, and the enemy is now having difficulty finding replacements. The enemy’s rapid reaction forces are limited, and his units have been spread thin throughout the country to try to replace the withdrawing American forces. ¹⁰ Politically, internal contradictions [divisions] within the enemy camp are becoming increasingly serious. Economically, South Vietnam’s situation continues to deteriorate and there is nothing that can remedy that, no matter what kind of economic measures the enemy takes. The U.S. was experiencing great internal turmoil, and even though Nixon had attempted to pressure Vietnam through her allies—the Soviet Union and China—it would not work. In fact, Tho reported, Nixon’s trip to China had so far presented them no problems.

The PAVN’s own preparations, despite a few logistical setbacks, were proceeding well. Clearly, he stated, we are in the driver’s seat, we are in a posture of victory, we have the initiative, and we are on the rise, while the enemy is in a posture of defeat, he is passive and on the defensive, and he is on the decline. We have great prospects for winning a great victory in the coming phase.

Although Le Duc Tho realized that the coming fight would be difficult and protracted, like Le Duan he had carefully considered future scenarios. He foresaw the same two developments but was less optimistic about the prospects for a political uprising leading to victory. While he accepted that the battlefield is where victory will be decided, it would only lead to a successful resolution at the negotiating table. If the northern armies achieved military superiority, then the time period advantageous for a solution to our problem, on the battlefield as well as at the conference table, is after we have achieved success in the spring-summer-fall campaigns and before the U.S. Presidential election is held. That will be the best time for us to secure a decisive victory on all fronts—the military front as well as on the political and diplomatic fronts.

Like Le Duan, Le Duc Tho hoped the first scenario, a successful military assault, would force the U.S. and the new government in Saigon to accept our demands at the conference table. Our two primary demands will be that the U.S. and its satellite nations must totally withdraw all their troops and that a tri-partite coalition government be formed to conduct general elections. Unlike the General Secretary, however, he believed The diplomatic struggle must also be closely coordinated with our effort to accomplish our strategic goals on the battlefields.

If for some reason Hanoi’s military assault failed, the Politburo had considered various scenarios and prepared fallback positions:

It is also possible that the level of victory we score in the spring, summer, and fall will not fully meet the goals we set. In that case, it is not certain that, on the negotiating front, the enemy will agree to accept our demands. Even if, on the military front, the Americans in the end will certainly be forced to withdraw all their troops, on the political front it is not certain that the enemy will agree to replace Thieu immediately. Instead, they may wait until they conclude a treaty with us before they agree to replace him. It is also possible that they will agree to replace him as soon as the sides agree on the terms of a settlement instead of replacing him one month before elections as set forward in our eight-point plan. With regards to the tri-partite coalition government, even if they agree to it, when we begin to get into substance there may be many restrictions on this. For that reason, based on the actual situation at the time, we will review the pluses and minuses to decide whether to continue to fight or whether to enter into a peace settlement. ¹¹

While the Politburo had carefully plotted its options, and differing opinions existed on the path to success, the result would be the same: total victory. Tho wrote: The mission of the revolution in South Vietnam is to carry out a national, democratic revolution. To accomplish this mission, we may divide the task into two phases. The first phase lasts from the time that we launched the resistance war against the Americans to save the nation until the time we secure a decisive victory and end the war through a political solution. The second phase lasts from the time we secure victory through a political solution until we finally reunite our Fatherland. These two phases are directly linked to one another and will develop in a continuous fashion until the national, democratic revolution in South Vietnam is successfully completed. The level of success achieved in the first phase will determine the conditions required for developments in the second phase. ¹²

At the end of March 1972, the PAVN launched the largest offensive of the war. Its initial gains were excellent, and by early May, Quang Tri city was captured, while Kontum and An Loc were surrounded. Although Hanoi seemed poised for a major military victory, U.S. firepower was exacting a heavy toll on North Vietnamese columns and logistics. To force the U.S. to halt the bombing, in late April, Politburo member and DRV Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh announced at an internal diplomatic conference a new priority for Hanoi’s negotiation strategy. Diplomatic efforts and international activities must properly support the goals of our military and diplomatic struggles inside Vietnam and restrict the enemy’s military counterattacks, and especially restrict attacks against North Vietnam. ¹³ Hanoi would resume the negotiations in Paris, calculating it could use that forum to convince the Americans to halt the bombing.

Although the Politburo had modified its diplomatic stance, its main strategy had not altered. According to Trinh, When there was a change in the situation, when the balance of forces shifted in our favor, we would use diplomacy to force the enemy into serious negotiations and force them to accept their own defeat.

Suddenly a new factor emerged which the Politburo had not considered. Nixon’s forthcoming trip to the Soviet Union in May had forced the Russians to prod the North Vietnamese into finding a diplomatic solution to the war. Throughout April, the Russian officials met with various Politburo members, seeking to act as intermediaries to end the current offensive before the Politburo had achieved its much-desired significant military victory. The Politburo refused but was increasingly concerned about U.S. efforts to use China and the Soviet Union to limit our success on the battlefield and to make pressure for an early solution. ¹⁴

On 2 May, Le Duc Tho and Kissinger met again in Paris. With Hanoi’s forces on the advance, Le Duc Tho followed his script. He demanded the immediate resignation of Thieu, a change in the Republic of Vietnam’s current policies, a halt to American bombing, and rebuffed any overtures from the Soviets. The DRV was ready for peace, but only on its terms.

While Tho gave Kissinger the illusion of a man confident of victory, internally the Politburo, while acknowledging its victories, was beginning to recognize the shortcomings of its attack formations. Its armor forces had been badly handled, opportunities to score larger successes had been missed, and local forces had failed to damage pacification. Despite these problems, however, Hanoi was staying the course. On 4 May, it cabled the southern commanders that our primary goal is to gain our biggest victories during the months of May and June in order to create a new strategic environment that is advantageous to us in every respect throughout the entire South Vietnamese battlefield during this time period, and then, using that as our foundation, to attack the enemy to exploit and expand our victories. ¹⁵

Nixon, however, had not only resumed B-52 strikes in North Vietnam, on 8 May he sent naval aircraft to mine Haiphong harbor. By mid-May, the increased air attacks and the mining had considerably slowed shipments into North Vietnam. Food reserves were down to a five-month supply, and gasoline was even less. Lumber, steel, and cement stockpiles were also growing smaller. Much of the electrical power grid had been knocked out. In the south, while the Communist troops continued to press hard against South Vietnamese positions, its units had suffered heavy losses. To maintain support for the southern armies, the Party Secretariat recommended that the Politburo place the country on a total war-footing economically.

While the North Vietnamese managed to overcome some of its supply difficulties, by 1 June, the Politburo was forced to revamp its strategy. In a new resolution, they claimed that its army had badly damaged South Vietnamese forces, had taken new territory, and had substantially altered the balance of power on the battlefield. However, the PAVN’s own command clumsiness and inability to fight effectively with its new Soviet weapons had prevented greater victories. The war would go on, but the Politburo now needed to protect North Vietnam and find ways to expand production and subvert the American blockade. To do that required a diversion of resources away from the war in the south. Air defense units began pulling back to defend the homeland, leaving the army even more exposed to the American bombers.

The Decision for Peace

By the end of June, the Politburo met once again to assess the overall situation. The military tide was turning against Hanoi, and the American bombing and mining had severely cut external aid. Plus, the Chinese and Soviets were pressing Hanoi to settle the war. Thus, the Politburo deduced that since enemy forces still controlled the major cities and most of the population, it could not realistically demand Thieu’s immediate departure. Given that the battlefield situation was stalemated, Hanoi decided to change its strategy, from a strategy of war to a strategy of peace. This was a turning point in…the revolution in South Vietnam. ¹⁶

The Politburo settled on the following course. Utilizing our victories on the battlefield and exploiting the U.S.’s domestic problems, we would force the American government to accept a solution to end the war. Our soldiers and civilians would secure an important victory with this solution by accomplishing our goal of ‘fighting to make the Americans go home’ so that we could then shift to a new phase in the struggle and continue to advance the cause of the revolution until we secured complete victory. ¹⁷

The Politburo approved a number of major policy guidelines aimed at achieving four goals: force the U.S. to respect the fundamental national rights of the Vietnamese people; end its war of aggression and withdraw all its troops, end its military involvement and would no longer interfere in the internal affairs of South Vietnam; recognize that South Vietnam had two governments, two armies, and two areas of control; and provide war reparations to heal the wounds of war and rebuild North Vietnam. ¹⁸

Moreover, the Politburo’s core principle remained the same: The U.S. must completely withdraw all its troops while the Vietnamese revolution would retain all of its political and armed forces currently in South Vietnam. Still, we could be flexible regarding the question of a government, allowing for three different options: Establishing a coalition government and abolishing the current governments of both sides; establishing a coalition government at the national level but allowing the governments of the two sides to continue to exist; and the lowest option, retaining the governments of the two sides as they currently existed and forming a common organization to supervise the implementation of the agreement and to organize and hold general elections. ¹⁹

Basically, the Politburo had made several far-reaching decisions. Militarily, the PAVN would switch from an offensive posture on the southern battlefields to defending its newly won territorial gains. Politically, the Politburo would reduce its prior demands regarding Thieu’s immediate resignation (although it still wanted Thieu’s eventual removal from office), and the formation of a coalition government. Diplomatically, they would seek a negotiated settlement to rid themselves of the Americans so that Hanoi could then deal solely with the South Vietnamese.

On 19 July, Le Duc Tho met Kissinger again. The two sides began the slow dance of probing each other’s positions for areas of flexibility to reach a settlement. Le Duc Tho informed Kissinger that, It is time you and we begin discussions of substantial problems. The peaceful settlement should be found directly between us; your search for another way and your diplomatic maneuvers will be useless and doubtlessly cannot lead to a solution. ²⁰ It was Tho’s way of telling Kissinger that North Vietnam was now ready to complete a deal.

After meeting with Kissinger, Le Duc Tho sent a message to Hanoi. He still hoped that U.S. election pressures could force the Americans into making a favorable settlement. However, he noticed that Kissinger seemed less eager to settle. It raised the possibility that Nixon might stall and continue the war beyond 1972. The situation would become clearer by the end of August, but for the moment, Tho would continue to push for the Politburo’s maximum position. More importantly, while it was imperative to secure a favorable battlefield position, if Hanoi’s military forces suffered losses, the internal contradictions in the American camp (the world-wide antiwar movement, the continuing withdrawal of U.S. forces, McGovern’s nomination for President, the antiwar mood of the U.S. Congress), could buffer that setback.

The Politburo, however, wanted to show more flexibility, and began implementing their modified strategy. On 1 August, the Communists announced a revamped 10-point proposal for ending the war. In particular, the revised offer dropped the demand that Thieu immediately resign and reduced the powers of a new government after the settlement.

Kissinger again demurred. Faced with his insistence on separating the political and military issues, with the war turning against the North and Nixon leading in the polls, by the beginning of September, the Politburo began preparing its southern commanders for an early settlement. They informed COSVN that Nixon would either end the war before the elections, or it would refuse and strive to make it past the elections in order to be able to continue the war. The Politburo was making an aggressive effort to ensure the first option. ²¹

The recapture of Quang Tri City by the South Vietnamese in mid-September further convinced the Politburo that they needed to adjust their strategy if they wanted to strike an agreement before the U.S. elections. Earlier, they had formed a secret analytic cell in Vietnam called CP 50 that was directly subordinate to the Politburo. The cell’s purpose was to help Le Duc Tho and Xuan Thuy work out technical details and provide them advice on strategy. Following the city’s loss, the cell made a policy-changing recommendation. After reviewing the primary issues of greatest contention between the two sides in the negotiations (the two issues were the political issue in South Vietnam and the issue of North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam), and after considering the fact that the negotiations were now being conducted during the final phase of the U.S. Presidential election, CP 50 asked that Nguyen Co Thach request the Politburo lower our demands, to some extent at least, on the South Vietnamese political issue. ²²

Thach agreed, and upon returning to Paris for a late September meeting with Kissinger, he informed the North Vietnamese negotiating group that Le Duan had acquiesced. Le Duan had told Thach that, If we want to speed up the negotiations in Paris and sign an agreement before November 1972…we must concentrate our efforts on doing whatever it takes to resolve our first (primary) objective, which is ‘to fight to force the Americans to withdraw.’ The achievement of our first objective will create the conditions necessary for us to subsequently attain our second objective, ‘fight to make the puppets collapse.’

While obtaining the first objective was paramount, the accords also had to achieve two primary military goals. First, end all U.S. military involvement in South Vietnam and the bombing and mining of North Vietnam. Second, North Vietnamese troops would remain in the South. The achievement of these two requirements, Le Duan told Thach, Would lead to the recognition that, in practical terms, there were in fact two governments, two armies, and two zones of control. This would create a new balance of forces that would be extremely favorable to our side and these favorable conditions would allow us to continue the struggle to achieve our second objective. ²³

Although Le Duan had accepted that his original second option was coming to fruition (two governments working in parallel), he now recognized that diplomacy would be necessary to end of the war. While he still believed that victory in the military and political struggles on the battlefields of South Vietnam will be the decisive factor, exploiting the diplomatic struggle is also something that is very important. ²⁴

He had not, however, given up on his cherished dream of mass political agitation to overthrow Thieu. Since Saigon would still have its oppressive machinery intact after the accords, the Communists needed to foment a political movement that demanded peace and national reconciliation. The urban movement would overthrow Thieu when the people realized the Thieu government was violating the ceasefire. Moreover, military force would remain important, since he felt that the South Vietnamese would make assaults after the ceasefire to grab territory. It appears Le Duan was already preparing for renewed conflict after the signing of a peace treaty.

If fighting did not break out again, he believed that once the peace treaty was signed, the Saigon government would quickly fall apart anyway. "Internally, the high-level puppet clique will also become more