s taying the c ourse 265Wasted Talk
Nixon’s quest to end the war “with honor” led him on a diplomatic
path that extended the war for little gain. As I discussed earlier, when
talks began between American negotiators and North Vietnamese rep-
resentatives in Paris in 1968, the outlines of a possible settlement were
already in place. Le Duc Tho indicated that South Vietnam might
remain neutral and independent for a time in exchange for an Amer-
ican withdrawal. Th e settlement reached by Th o and Henry Kissinger
in October 1972, and ultimately signed in very similar form in January
1973, scarcely improved upon these terms. Indeed, the language for
several planks in the fi nal Paris Peace Accords repeated verbatim parts
of the NLF’s ten-point peace plan for 1969. Although the communist
side dropped its demand that President Th ieu be forced to step down,
the United States conceded far more by giving up its insistence on a
mutual troop withdrawal. Th e Nixon administration stumbled over the
same obstacle that had thwarted its predecessor: Washington exercised
little diplomatic leverage over either its adversary in Hanoi or its client
in Saigon.
Initially, Nixon and Kissinger believed they could browbeat Th o and
his colleagues into accepting a better settlement for South Vietnam
than the one Johnson might have secured. In exchange for a mutual
withdrawal by American and North Vietnamese forces, the United
States would be prepared to accept the freely expressed will of the
South Vietnamese people, including the choice of reunifi cation if they
wished. Th e American proposal called for the military cease-fi re to
precede any political solution. As these proposals were being tabled
(that is, submitted for discussion), the administration also warned that
it was losing patience and would be prepared to use greater force if
Hanoi did not show fl exibility, establishing a pattern of ultimatums
that would characterize the American negotiating stance in the years
that followed.
In response, the communist delegates restated the NLF program,
which called for a complete withdrawal of American forces, the release
of all prisoners of war (POWs), and the creation of a coalition gov-
ernment in South Vietnam. For three years the DRV stance—that the
United States must withdraw and Th ieu step aside—remained fi rm.