0 - The Black Vault

THE BDM C09PORATION
This chapter will outline the extent to which the negotiating process
assisted or detracted from the attainment of US
goals in Southeast Asia and
Viet-amn The strengths and weaknesses exploited by tnc participating
parties will be identified and analyzed within the conte:.t of the
approaches taken in the negotiating process.
Insights and lessons will 1be extracted from this analysis, and recommendations
on how the US should approach and ccnduct negotiatiol's in the
future will be developed.
B. PHASED ANALYSIS OF NEGOTIATIONS
'
TU provide the desired perspective in this analysis, it was convenient
to consider the negotiations in Vietnam in the following three phases:
0 immediate post-WII through the Geneva Conference to 1951
* the period 1961 to mid-1968
the Paris Negotiations.
1, Phase 1: Post-WWII to 1961
US policy toward Southeast Asia during WWII was dictated by the
expedient military strategy of concentrating its forces against the Japanese
homeland and British intransigence on the colonial issue. The result
was thac the US accepted Br-tish military primacy in Southeast Asia and
concurred in the division of Indochina at the 16th parallel between the
British and the Chinese for the purpose of occupation after the conflict
had ended. 3/
In September 1945, with British cooperation, the French reestablished
themselves south of the 16th parallel.
The return o- the French to
the South was facilitated by the lack of firm control by the newly independent
Vietnamese governinont over competing nationalist elements. At that
time the situation in the North was different. The government of Ho Chi
Minh had established itself ip power, but the Chinese were expected to
arrive momentarily to exercise their occupational functions. The return of
the French to the North became canditional on two counts.
* there had to be an agreement whereby French troops would replace
j- Chinese forces, and
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