In Quest of Peace

(See Cover)

Yet the infirmities of man are such that force must often precede reason, and the waste of war the works of peace.

--Lyndon Johnson

It was a flying fortnight, the likes of which the world had never seen, mingling mystery and flamboyance, discretion and display in an unorthodox diplomatic maneuver unmistakably stamped L.B.J. On orders from the White House, for the first time in nearly a year, North Viet Nam's skies were free of American fighter-bombers. Instead, jets winged to the four corners of the earth carrying presidential emissaries prospecting for peace in Viet Nam. At first their departures were unannounced, their message a state secret, their destinations sometimes a surprise to themselves--and their hosts.

U.N. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg was summoned from a Bahama vacation and sent off to Rome. From there he flew to Paris to confer with De Gaulle, whom he told that Johnson had sent him to Europe to see just "two great men--yourself and the Pope." Next day, to his mild discomfiture, Goldberg found himself seeing British Prime Minister Harold Wilson on L.B.J.'s sudden order. (In fact, he had also paid his respects to Italian President Giuseppe Saragat.) Roving U.S. Ambassador Averell Harriman popped up in Poland so unexpectedly that he nearly caught U.S. Ambassador John A. Gronouski out of town. Special Presidential Assistant McGeorge Bundy was sent to Ottawa to see Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, while Under Secretary of State Thomas Mann slipped down Mexico way. To Africa went G. Mennen Williams, dune-hopping from Rabat to Tunis--and eventually 14 countries, seeing such Africans as Nigeria's Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta.

Neither Hide nor Hair. With the first surfacing abroad of Johnson's envoys, the secrecy began to evaporate, the "peace offensive" to be recognized for what it was, Johnson was prepared for as much. "I can no more put a wig on Averell or Arthur and hide them," he observed, "than I can on Luci." Still, the gist of the U.S. message, the precise nature of the U.S. proposals, were kept closely guarded. De Gaulle, probably with secret delight, since it so suited his own habitual taste for melodrama, solemnly informed his Cabinet that at Johnson's request he could tell them nothing of his talks with Goldberg. Harriman saw Tito, then Nasser, and thinly tried to justify his two days in Cairo as an effort to get Egypt to look into the welfare of U.S. prisoners of war in North Viet Nam. He did indeed touch on that, but on much more as well, as proved by his odyssey eastward through Teheran, New Delhi, Bangkok, Tokyo, Australia.

As the U.S. peace missionaries whizzed from capital to capital, Moscow was embarking on a diplomatic offensive of its own. Its aim: to stake out a major, continuing role in Asia. Riding the rails to Ulan Bator last week was Communist First Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. His mission: to sign a new defense treaty with Mongolia along Red China's mountainous Sinkiang frontier. Since Peking is the only conceivable threat to Mongolia's remote land space, the Kremlin's intention was fairly clear. Nor could Peking be very happy about what was going on in Tashkent last week. There, an avuncular Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin was mediating the border squabble between India's Lai Bahadur Shastri and Pakistan's Ayub Khan, whom Peking fancies as a lately found friend. With almost daily shooting on the Chinese-Indian Himalayan frontier, the last thing Peking wants is a settlement between India and Pakistan. Nor does Peking relish Russia's role as a peacemaker among Asians.

Of most acute interest both to Peking and the U.S. was last week's meeting in Hanoi between Soviet Troubleshooter Aleksandr Shelepin and Ho Chi Minh, the first high-level Soviet visit to North Viet Nam since Kosygin's trip last February. With Shelepin went an expert in munitions production and the deputy commander of Russia's rocketry armory; and on arrival in Hanoi, Shelepin dutifully denounced U.S. "aggression" in Viet Nam. It hardly added up to what the U.S. had hoped it might be: a parallel peace probe, urging Hanoi to sit down and talk. But Peking was not so sure and, in fact, labeled Shelepin a "peace peddler," come to Hanoi "to stab in the back" the anti-U.S. struggle in Viet Nam, in outright collusion with the "American imperialists" to bring a halt to the war. Precisely what Shelepin was up to, Moscow was, of course, not saying.

Carrot & Earnest. But as Lyndon Johnson's peace offensive gathered momentum, the U.S. had no such qualms about unveiling its purpose. It was disclosed in the form of a letter addressed to U.N. Secretary-General U Thant from Goldberg to be communicated to all the member states of the U.N. as a Security Council document. Authorized by Johnson himself, it reaffirmed "our desire promptly to achieve a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Viet Nam and to do all in our power to move that conflict from the battlefield to the conference table." For the first time, Washington publicly acknowledged that, as a carrot to Hanoi and an earnest and visible token of U.S. sincerity in the peace offensive to the rest of the world, "our bombing of North Viet Nam has not been resumed since the Christmas truce."

Behind the President's massive thrust for peace lay a long and frustrating history. For ten years, under three Presidents, the war in Viet Nam had dragged on, ever more menacing to the security of South Viet Nam, ever more increasing the U.S. commitment of men and materiel, of blood and treasure. Over the years, every other type of regular--and irregular--diplomatic approach to Hanoi had been tried--and had failed. In the last year alone, more than 200 private contacts had been initiated. Not one had produced a perceptible nod from the other side. The President and his aides have made dozens of speeches, talked to hundreds of world leaders and officials. Neither the bombing, the surging U.S. buildup in the past six months, nor the success of the American fighting man against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars had seemed to produce the faintest waver in Communist intent.

Johnson was convinced he could carry the American people with him, whatever sacrifice Viet Nam might require --and public-opinion polls bore him out. Still, the pressures from home and abroad mounted with the very lack of successful contacts with the enemy--and, above all, as the U.S. commitment of men began to burgeon. The confusion was unnecessary, but it was undeniably true that leaders both in the U.S. and in foreign lands had begun to lose sight of precisely what the U.S. wanted in Viet Nam, and why America was there. The peace offensive contained the answer.

The Sticking Point. Everywhere the U.S. missionaries went, they presented a 14-point itemization of what the U.S. considered the essential elements in any peace settlement in Viet Nam. Penciled by Dean Rusk, they were, in effect, the U.S. conditions to Hanoi and Peking for ending the bloody war before it escalated further--and a rationale for the rest of the world.

As Goldberg summarized the 14 points, the U.S. was ready for "discussions or negotiations without any prior conditions whatsoever." The first order of business of any talks: a ceasefire. America is prepared to withdraw its forces from South Viet Nam, and wants no continuing military bases there--provided that the day comes when the nation "is in a position to determine its own future without external interference." That means, says the U.S., that the South Vietnamese be free to determine their own future through democratic processes. And that reunification of the two Viet Nams be decided by the free decision of the two peoples.

They were not without the ambiguities inevitable in the delicate and maddeningly complex problems of a war that is as political as it is military. But taken together, they spelled out in total clarity the gut issue in Viet Nam: that North Viet Nam must stop its aggressions on and subversion of South Viet Nam. The U.S. asked no more--but would accept no less.

Hanoi's answer, though it might not be the final one, was not long in coming. In a lengthy statement from Ho's foreign ministry, "the new 'peace proposals' " were denounced as a "trick, merely the repetition of old themes." Once again, the sticking point for the Communists was U.S. refusal to countenance negotiations with the Viet Cong in South Viet Nam directly--or give them a share in any postwar government of South Viet Nam. To do so, Washington adjudges with reason, would be to hand over at the conference table what the Communists are now trying to win on the battlefield. Such are the grim realities of the struggle in South Viet Nam that there is in fact very little to negotiate about, so far apart are the minimum positions of the two sides (see ESSAY).

Propaganda Circus. The U.S. had begun the daily bombing of North Viet Nam last February, prompted by enemy attacks on American compounds, in the hope of forcing Hanoi to realize the folly of continuing the war and to sit down to talk. That failed; so all through the summer of last year the President weighed the obvious alternative: a cessation of bombing to encourage Hanoi to discuss peace. Moscow, Peking, Hanoi, and even Western European capitals kept insisting that the sine qua non of opening communications with Hanoi was a stop to the bombing. Last May the U.S. tried a five-day pause. It produced not a single "signal" of a softening on the Communist side, but critics both at home and abroad replied that five days was far too short a time to allow Hanoi to signal a reaction. As the year wore on and the momentum of the U.S. buildup in force in Viet Nam increased, more and more foreign capitals seemed to doubt that the U.S. desired peace on any reasonable terms.

It was, aptly enough, on Veterans Day last fall that the idea of linking another, longer bombing pause with a peace offensive first blossomed. Gathered at the L.B.J. ranch for a working holiday with the President were Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy and Bill Moyers. The four enthusiastically recommended it to Johnson, but the President feared that so dramatic and massive a campaign might be mistaken for a public relations ploy or, worse, an indication of U.S. lack of resolve in the war. But Johnson was willing to consider it further. "All right," he said, "I want you to start looking at this from every angle, from all sides." But, he warned, it must be done in complete secrecy. "The worst thing that could happen would be for it to get out. Then it would become just a gimmick."

Three weeks later, on Pearl Harbor Day, Johnson and his top security advisers again assembled in Texas, outdoors under a warm sun.* The advice was unanimous: an announced pause in the bombing, then the quiet peace offensive. L.B.J. quickly vetoed the no-bombing public declaration. "For me to stand up and announce a bombing pause," he asserted, "would be to admit that this was a propaganda circus." With that, the President fell silent, and his advisers left the ranch convinced he was going to reject the whole idea.

The Two Alternatives. Not at all. For ten days, Johnson pondered the project, finally summoned General Earle Wheeler, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and asked whether a bombing pause would damage the U.S. military position. "If we maintain our reconnaissance," replied the general, "the military disadvantage will not be that significant." With that, Johnson at last decided to go ahead, and the question became: When? The first opportunity was the Viet Cong-proposed Christmas ceasefire, but the President obviously did not want to dignify the Reds' offer by linking his peace offensive to their initiative. Then came a totally unexpected--and heaven-sent--cue: Pope Paul's Christmas appeal to the world for peace in Viet Nam. Along with the other engines of war, the bombers were grounded during the Christmas truce of three days--and when it was over simply never took off again for North Viet Nam. Just as quietly, Johnson's peace ambassadors slipped off on their missions.

Their goal was delicate and tripartite: to clarify once and for all U.S. aims in Viet Nam; to persuade friend and foe alike of the sincerity of Washington's wish for peace in Asia; and to try, through a mobilization of world opinion, to get the message through to Hanoi that an approach to peace was the only sane course for either side. With nearly 200,000 U.S. troops now in Viet Nam, and at least twice as many due to be there by the end of this year, the White House wanted the enemy to understand the simple, stark alternatives: 1) a clear move toward the conference table, or toward a non-negotiated but unmistakable reduction of the fighting, within a relatively short time; or 2) sharply increased military action by the U.S., very likely spilling over into Laos and Cambodia as American troops move to cut off the movement of men and supplies from the north down the Ho Chi Minh trail.

First in the Delta. To make certain that the Communists understood the second point and did not mistake the U.S.'s genuine desire for peace talks for a weakening of its will in the war, the President ordered one further precaution. While the bombers spared North Viet Nam during the period of probing, U.S. forces in South Viet Nam were to step up their thrusts at the Viet Cong.

Step them up they did. Men of the 173rd Airborne swept out in Operation Marauder into the Plain of Reeds in the Mekong Delta, the first U.S. troops to operate in the Delta. Penetrating an area so thoroughly held by the Viet Cong that government troops have not ventured in for six months, they killed 114 V.C. in their first major contact, rooting the enemy out of beehive bunkers built into the mud along the canals.

Meanwhile nearly every other major U.S. field combat unit in Viet Nam was out hunting in battalion-or larger-sized operations--and so, too, showing the flag of allied support, were the South Vietnamese, the Koreans, Australians and New Zealanders. The other G.I.s had little luck compared with the 173rd's: whether out of tactic or sheer prudence, the Viet Cong lay low. That, in a measure, deprived the U.S. of the firm point Johnson wanted to make: that to underestimate his resolve could be disastrous. So the U.S. made it in other ways. The bombers usually busy over North Viet Nam were put to work blasting the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos, flying as many as 250 sorties a day against Hanoi's pipeline, which was taking advantage of the bombing pause. And General Wheeler, back from a swing through Southeast Asia, announced that, should the peace offensive fail, he would immediately ask the President for a resumption of bombing the North.

The Trustworthy Man. While the sound of war continued in volume in Viet Nam, a remote and quiet Lyndon Johnson sat last week in his oval office watching for signs of peace. Beside his desk stood two news tickers. Every wire-service story that clattered in was scrutinized by the President for the slightest hint of response. Every phone call from Dean Rusk, every memo from the still-voyaging Harriman was eagerly accepted. Of the President's desire for peace there could be no doubt. Nor of the stakes, should the present all-out effort to get to the conference table fail. By any measure, Johnson had engaged the power and prestige of the U.S. to the hilt in one of the most intensive, difficult, carefully conducted and important global maneuvers in its diplomatic history. By the end of last week, the bombing pause and the peace offensive were in their 16th day. Were there any omens that they might just succeed, for all the odds against them?

On at least one level, it certainly had. Peking in splenetic fury denounced the peace offensive as a "trick," a "hoax," and "the greatest show on earth," featuring "freaks and monsters," meaning, presumably, the U.S. envoys. But America's allies and much of the nonaligned world clearly were impressed. Indian Prime Minister Shastri indicated to Harriman he would convey the American message to Russia's Kosygin--and did so as soon as he reached Tashkent for his peace talks with Ayub Khan. The Japanese, despite considerable reservations about the growing scope of the war, greeted Harriman warmly as shin-yo aru hikeshi otoko--"the trustworthy man who puts out fires." Foreign Minister Etsusaburo Shiina goes to Moscow this week to sign Russo-Japanese air and trade agreements, and, he, too, promised to urge upon the Kremlin the U.S. brief. Pope Paul, continuing the Vatican's campaign for an end to hostilities, announced he was ready to "attempt any means, beyond usual protocol" to facilitate peace.

Egypt's Nasser, no notable supporter of the U.S. in Viet Nam, offered his good offices in the search for a settlement, and immediately ordered Egyptian diplomats to contact Hanoi. His enthusiasm stems in part, no doubt, from a desire to enhance his own image as an international statesman. But the government press went a bit beyond mere self-serving. "Scorn and skepticism in the Communist camp notwithstanding," noted the Egyptian Gazette, "no head of state would send special envoys to a dozen world capitals, as President Johnson has done, if he had no intention of suiting his actions to his words." Socialist Algeria, hand-tooled, like Hanoi, in bloody rebellion against French masters, received Soapy Williams with unusual cordiality.

Some of the sharpest gibes at Johnson's efforts came from allied nations, but most of the grumbling had to do with style. The Stuttgarter Zeitung complained about "exaggerated publicity," Le Monde called it "the noisy drive," having more "publicity value than practical bearing." More fundamental was an undertone of criticism of Washington's refusal to negotiate with the Viet Cong as a political entity.

Technical Stopover. Still, the generally excellent response to the U.S. appeal was perhaps best attested by the increasingly defensive tone of Peking and Hanoi. Red China's party paper Jenmin Jih Pao was soon wailing about "well-intentioned people" whom the U.S. campaign had led astray, asking in foot-stamping frustration: "How could the Johnson Administration fool the clear-sighted people with such tricks?" Whether Peking was referring to Hanoi, or to nonaligned nations, clearly it thought the message was getting through to someone important.

Peking also suspected that Shelepin's mission to Hanoi might have a pacifying motive. "Before taking the decision to send Shelepin," insisted Radio Peking, "the Soviet Union was undoubtedly tipped off by the U.S. about its pause in bombing." In any case Shelepin's visit could indeed help determine whether or not a "signal" ever comes from Hanoi. For the war in Viet Nam is more and more the chief ideological dueling ground of the Sino-Soviet quarrel.

That was evident in Shelepin's trip itself. Kremlin watchers think the trip was delayed by Peking, which was slow to come through with permission to fly over China. True or not, there was no doubt of Shelepin's chilly reception when his jet touched down at Peking airport en route to Hanoi for a "technical stopover." An unsmiling Finance Minister Li Hsien-nien was on hand to greet the Russian, dapper in a well-cut coat with Persian lamb collar and matching cap. The Chinese had prepared lunch, but the Russians had fore-handedly eaten on the plane, so generalities were exchanged about the weather, and the Ilyushin winged aloft a scant 50 minutes after landing.

Guns for Buttering. Ostensibly both Moscow and Peking fully support Hanoi's cause in Viet Nam. China, however, supplies largely ideological fuel to the "war of liberation." Only Russia can materially assist with modern arms --such as the SAM missiles ringing Hanoi. So far, the Russians have been exceedingly selective in their weapons, are sending just enough to lure Ho Chi Minh toward their side of the Sino-Soviet dispute, without risking a more direct confrontation with the U.S. Albania, Peking's European mouthpiece, insists that that is the whole purpose of the trip by Shelepin, who is a party troubleshooter rather than a diplomat. He is, in short, to find out whether Hanoi would attend a conference of all the Communist parties later this year, which would, in effect, excommunicate Peking from the club.

If the Albanians, who have often been right about Moscow's intentions in the past, are correct, Shelepin's mission is not peace. In the long run, however, a North Viet Nam clearly allied to Moscow rather than Peking would surely be a less implacable and fanatic enemy. Such are the complexities in Asia that in the short run, Moscow may well have to supply more guns--and thus increase the intensity of the war--to snare Ho's alliance.

Back home, the U.S. peace offensive had already struck sparks of domestic debate on the eve of Congress, reconvening this week to hear the President's State of the Union address. There were fears that a prolonged bombing pause might limit American freedom of action and make it difficult to resume hitting the North in the face of a newly aroused and hopeful world opinion. Democratic Senator Richard Russell felt that the pause had already gone on too long, urged resumption of bombing at once.

Democratic Senators George McGovern and Frank Church argued that negotiations were doomed to failure unless the Viet Cong were included at the bargaining table. McGovern described the Viet Cong leaders as "determined, proud men" who would not let anyone --Hanoi, Peking or Moscow--negotiate for them. Not so, replied Senator Edmund Muskie, just back from an around-the-world, five-Senator fact-finding mission for Johnson led by Democratic Senate Leader Mike Mansfield. Muskie took the view of most informed observers in Viet Nam: that whatever initial independence the Viet Cong might have enjoyed in the late 1950s has long since withered, as Hanoi has moved in to direct the war.

Republican Senator Everett Dirksen, while supporting the President's search for negotiations, took a dim and pessimistic view of their usefulness unless the U.S. scored a clear military victory first. "We must have capitulation before there is peace," said Dirksen, otherwise "how much negotiation are you going to get?"

Not very much, was the reply of Mansfield's report. "Negotiations at this time," said the Senate globetrotters, "would serve to stabilize a situation in which the majority of the population remains under nominal government control but in which dominance of the countryside rests largely in the hands of the Viet Cong." On the other hand, the Senators gloomily found, if talks do not take place and the U.S. steps up the war, the grim "alternative prospect" is a "continuance of the conflict in the direction of a general war on the Asian mainland." The report was certain to cause a heated Congressional debate, since it seemed to overestimate the Communists' powers of negotiation and underestimate U.S. military prowess and power when fully brought to bear against the enemy. Of course, there was always the risk that the Communists might just seem to take the U.S. at its word--and go to the conference table not to make peace but to undermine the fragile structures of South Viet Nam's government, as well as stall the U.S. build-up while pressing on with its own.

Having Tried Everything. Meanwhile Lyndon Johnson and the U.S. continue to await the sign from Hanoi that may mean peace, before taking the crucial decision to resume bombing of the North. So far, there had been no positive signals of success. But Washington experts took heart from a few negative signs that the peace offensive had not yet run its course. For one thing, they noted that during last May's brief bombing pause Hanoi had flatly refused to accept a note from the U.S. delivered by the Canadians. This time, a note has been accepted. Last time, Peking and Moscow almost at once announced the bombing cessation would not lead Hanoi to the conference table. This time, there is not yet that nyet. Last week the official North Viet Nam news agency carried a dispatch from Pans quoting a French envoy just back from Hanoi as saying that, unlike Peking, Hanoi would welcome further peace initiatives and was interested in negotiating.

At week's end there were other buds of hints as well, which for the time being the White House was prudently keeping to itself, for fear they might wilt in the open air. Whether or not peace does flower from the President's latest and greatest effort, the U.S. can hardly be the worse for its try in the opening days of the new year. If a just and honorable peace guaranteeing the freedom of South Viet Nam can be obtained, all the world will benefit-- and with it, the cause of freedom everywhere. If it should fail, the burden of blame will irrevocably rest where it has always belonged--upon the heads of the Communist aggressors, for all the world to see. Then, having tried everything in every possible place, and having enlisted every nation and office that might help in the cause of peace, the U.S. can resume reluctantly--but with clear conscience--the unwelcome and unwanted prosecution of the war.

*The picture on the cover was taken inside the Johnson ranch house on Dec. 7.

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