Diplomacy: A Place to Talk

• Share

Like two boxers at the opening bell, the U.S. and North Viet Nam warily circled the ring, each testing the other's reach. Each side was determined to yield nothing in advance, and each was probing for an opening that would lead to a position of strength. Lyndon Johnson characteristically described the situation in the midst of a conversation in his White House office. Striking a prizefighter's pose, he said: "I'm holding my left hand open and out in front of me, saying, 'Come on, let's talk.'

And I'm keeping my right up high to protect myself and to hit."

The pose had a certain drama about it. But the noisy dispute over a site where American and North Vietnamese negotiators could meet for preliminary talks recalled what the late John Foster Dulles said in 1954 about negotiating with Asian Communists: "Progress is always slow and seldom spectacular."

A Matter of Propaganda. Initially, Johnson suggested Geneva. Without rejecting the Swiss city outright, Hanoi came back with Pnompenh. Johnson, in turn, pointed out that Cambodia's capital has serious communications shortcomings and that neither the U.S. nor South Viet Nam has an embassy there. Instead, he proposed four other Asian sites (Vientiane, Rangoon, Djakarta and New Delhi).

North Viet Nam's reply came through a most unorthodox channel: a Tass dispatch from Hanoi saying that Washington's reluctance to accept Pnompenh "cannot but cause wonder, because the U.S. has repeatedly expressed willingness to send its representatives to any point on the globe." Tass added that the North Vietnamese would nonetheless be willing to consider Warsaw as an alternative. Hours later, Hanoi confirmed its choice of the Polish capital in a formal note delivered to U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan in Vientiane, where there have been as many as nine exchanges between American and North Vietnamese diplomats since early April.

By now, Johnson had become annoyed by the North Vietnamese penchant for making proposals through the press rather than through diplomatic channels. At the President's orders, Under Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach called in Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and delivered a caustic protest over Tass's violation of diplomatic etiquette. At the White House Presidential Press Secretary George Christian said: "Those acting in good faith will not seek to make this a matter of propaganda."

Legitimate Objections. Nevertheless, Hanoi was clearly doing so—and seemed to be getting away with it. The U.S. had some legitimate objections to Pnompenh and had equally valid reservations about Warsaw, an ally of Hanoi and a supplier of its arms. "We have proposed only places where they have an embassy and no apparent difficulties," said a U.S. official. "If we played it their way, we would suggest Taipei." Moreover, the North Vietnamese—and the Russians—did their best to capitalize on Johnson's repeated statements that he would send U.S. representatives "anywhere, any time," to "any spot on this earth." Accusing the U.S. of a "stubborn and perfidious attitude," Hanoi at week's end rejected as "not convenient" all the sites suggested by Washington.