NOW that all sides in Viet Nam seem willing to relinquish rhetorical pronunciamentos for real bargaining, the distances separating the adversaries on specific issues can begin to be measured. There is no substantial gap—in principle at least—on a number of items. On others, grave differences and difficulties remain.
The U.S. and the Communists agree to respect the territorial integrity of Laos and Cambodia. They are willing to negotiate a prisoner exchange. Both say that the entire political spectrum of South Viet Nam must be eligible for representation in its government. The U.S. insisted for years that the National Liberation Front be excluded, but Washington has since surrendered that position. Use of an international supervisory group to help carry out peace terms is recommended by both sides, for different purposes. Hanoi still proposes the reunification of North and South, less adamantly than it used to, and the U.S. now accepts the possibility—although the means to bring that about remain vague for now. Last week, reversing a long-held stand, President Nixon conceded that the U.S. would be willing to participate in discussions of political questions between the N.L.F. and the Saigon government. Previously, the U.S. had sought to negotiate only military matters, and only with North Viet Nam, while South Vietnamese alone dealt with internal questions.
Because the same word means different things to each side, agreement can be more apparent than real. Both sides talk about a “neutral” South Viet Nam, for instance. To the Communists, this may mean the exclusion from government of any element that fought them. “Democracy” has different definitions for Asians and Americans, for Communists and nonCommunists.
Genuine differences exist over the key question of withdrawal of non-South Vietnamese forces. The N.L.F. and Hanoi demand unconditional evacuation of U.S. and allied troops with international supervision of the exodus. Washington wants joint withdrawal of U.S., allied and North Vietnamese troops with outside monitoring. While the N.L.F. tacitly acknowledges the presence of North Vietnamese forces south of the DMZ, the latest Communist plan merely proposes that the matter of “Vietnamese” military forces in South Viet Nam should be negotiated “by the Vietnamese parties among themselves.” The N.L.F. hinted, however, that it might be willing to ask North Vietnamese troops to withdraw from South Viet Nam if the U.S. pulls out at the same time.
Richard Nixon could agree to this if means existed to assure compliance. He changed the position set out after Lyndon Johnson’s October, 1966 meeting with Asian leaders; the Manila communique ruled out allied withdrawals before “the level of violence subsides,” and declared that those troops would be fully evacuated within six months after the North Vietnamese had left. Once both sides agreed, said Nixon, the majority of “non-South Vietnamese forces”—a delicate locution that takes in the North Vietnamese without pointing the propagandist’s finger at them—would be withdrawn from South Viet Nam over a twelve-month period. Thereafter, the remaining non-South Vietnamese forces would withdraw into enclaves, cease fighting and eventually quit the country entirely.
The other major disagreement is over future elections in South Viet Nam. Before they are held, the N.L.F. wants a provisional government established, including the N.L.F. While Nixon did not agree outright, the U.S. no longer insists that the present Saigon government should run the national elections. Nixon said the elections would be conducted under “agreed procedures” —thus making those procedures negotiable for the first time.
Further, something resembling the provisional government asked by the N.L.F. is not ruled out. Nixon proposed international supervision of the interim elections, but did not insist on it. In any case, a caretaker government could be formed that would not be dominated either by the present regime’s generals or by the N.L.F. In Saigon and in exile, there are many intellectuals and former officials committed to neither. General Duong Van Minh could well head such a transition regime; it was “Big” Minh who led the 1963 coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem. Onetime Economics Minister Truong Au Thanh, ruled out of the 1967 presidential elections for supposed N.L.F. sympathies, would be a likely participant; so would Truong Dinh Dzu, a peace candidate who ran second in those elections to President Nguyen Van Thieu and was jailed for his views.
The elections question has proved one of the most enduring and misunderstood problems of the war. As far back as 1954, when the French-Viet Minh war was settled at Geneva, it was generally understood that balloting would be held in both North and South Viet Nam to construct a single government for the two zones, which would then reunite. That never happened. Now all parties pledge to respect the 1954 accords—yet no one realistically expects the Ho Chi Minh regime to permit open elections in the North. Joint elections are not even seriously discussed. Even the broader principles of the Geneva Declaration, which pledged to the Vietnamese people the right to “the fundamental freedoms, guaranteed by democratic institutions,” are subject to reinterpretation as the balance of political and military power shifts. Now the negotiators must translate those principles into concrete terms appropriate to the realities of the 1970s.
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