Diplomacy: The Front in Paris

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If the South Vietnamese delegation coming to the Paris peace talks would like the name of a good little bistro where the Bordeaux wine and the Camembert cheese are supportables, they could always ask the Viet Cong. No sooner had Lyndon Johnson announced the bombing halt last month than representatives of the National Liberation Front, the political arm of the Viet Cong, descended on Paris proclaiming their status as "equal partner" with the U.S., the North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese. While the South Vietnamese dithered over whether to attend the talks, the Front's representatives in Paris quickly set out to portray the N.L.F. as something that it is not—a government with the power to speak for itself and the people it controls.

To help shed the image that the Viet Cong are only jungle fighters in black pajamas, the Front pointedly named a chic woman to head its delegation. She is Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, 41, a member of the N.L.F. Central Committee and vice president of the South Viet Nam Woman's Liberation Union. A lifelong revolutionary who was first jailed by the French in 1950 for leading a demonstration against a U.S. arms shipment, Madame Binh is a well-traveled veteran of the Communist diplomatic circuit. She has represented the N.L.F. at conferences in Moscow, Peking and Cairo, and at a congress of the Women's Union of France in Paris earlier this year. Trim and articulate, her black hair swept back, Madame Binh has skillfully smiled her way through receptions and carefully stuck to the N.L.F. line when confronted by curious Western newsmen who hang on her every move. L'Express described her as "a sort of Joan of Arc of the rice paddies."

To enhance the N.L.F.'s aura of independence from Hanoi, Madame Binh and her five colleagues have taken special pains to dissociate themselves publicly from the representatives of North Viet Nam. She whisks about Paris in a rented black Citroen DS-21 flanked by two motorcycle policemen; the Viet Cong flag, a yellow star against a field of red and blue, flaps conspicuously from the fender. Her limousine has stopped at the Quai D'Orsay, where she paid a courtesy call on Herve Al-phand, former French Ambassador to the U.S. and now secretary-general of the French foreign office. She has attended East bloc receptions, called on the Algerians, Cubans and Cambodians, held teas for leading French Communist women, and visited pro-Communist student organizations. Wherever she goes on this circuit, Madame Binh monotonously hammers her theme: the N.L.F. is the "principal force" in South Viet Nam because it represents four-fifths of the land area of South Viet Nam, and President Thieu's government "represents no one." (According to allied figures, the Viet Cong control only 15.3% of South Viet Nam's 17.4 million people.) The N.L.F. knows very well that it will not be accepted as spokesman for South Viet Nam. But it is trying to achieve enough legitimacy to work its way into a coalition government in Saigon, or drive a wedge between Washington and Saigon.