The War: Future Indicative

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Next day, however, Hanoi's Paris mission took the next step itself and issued a statement labeling Redmont's report a "pure invention." The only truth in it, said the statement, was that "conversations"—not peace talks—will take place if the bombings stop. Apparently, Hanoi's man in Paris had been carried away by his own rhetoric and had told Redmont more than his government thought prudent.

The mere reassertion that North Viet Nam's position had shifted, however slightly, sent hopes soaring. Inflating the optimistic mood were reports that Hanoi's diplomats had made approaches about mediation and sites for negotiations in Laos, Burma, Cambodia and Indonesia. On investigation, however, the reports turned out to be either false or misleading, and U.S. diplomats expressed doubt that Hanoi had undertaken any concerted peace-feeler effort beyond Trinh's statement.

Sense of Déjà Vu. The fact was that many Americans last week felt a hopeless sense of déjà vu in all the talk about talks. Too many times the euphoria of peace "offensives" and "feelers" has ended in frustration. One year ago, North Viet Nam created a similar flurry of speculation by announcing that talks "could" begin if the U.S. stopped bombing for good. Nothing came of that, primarily because the North insisted that the basis for a settlement must be Hanoi's four-point program, which includes the demand that the internal affairs of South Viet Nam be settled in accordance with the program of the National Liberation Front. That clearly is unacceptable to both the U.S. and South Viet Nam. Yet Foreign Minister Trinh in his recent statement still insisted on the four points.

The suspicion that haunts Western analysts is that the North is cynically—and successfully—exploiting the world's desire for peace in order to create pressure for a long or even permanent bombing pause. The Vatican weekly L'Osservatore della Domenica last week printed its harshest criticism yet of U.S. bombing policy, calling it a "blind alley" that undermines the U.S. "moral and political" position. Leaders of West Germany's Social Democratic Party urged Washington to end the bombing. Several U.S. Congressmen also called for a bombing pause and immediate negotiations, including Senator Robert Kennedy. "It seems to me we lose nothing if we sit down to negotiate," he said in San Francisco. "If we can't stop the conflict, we can always go back to killing each other."