0 - The Black Vault

"i HE BDM CORPORATION
from the DRV some form of reciprocity or interest in accommodation. When
that did not bring the desiired resiults within a reasonable timeframe, the
president's advisers began to debate the efficacy of adding bombing halts
to the US strategy.
Defense, with occasionda
Several insiders 44/
placed the Office of the Secretary of
support from the Department of State, in favor of
using the unilateral bombing pauses to get the DRV to the negotiating
table.., The US military -- JCS, CINCPAC and MACV -- with support from a few
influential people in State (e.g., Ambassador Maxwell Taylor 45/), opposed
bombing pauses in order "not to give the communists a free ride to the
bati.lefield."46/
1) The Seaborn Initiative
Meanwhile, J. Blair Seaborr,, head of the Canadian
delegation to the International Control Commission (ICC), got into the
peace talks picture. From June 1964 to June 1965, Seaborn served as a
communications link between President *.lohnsop and DRV
Premier Pham Van Dong
(see Figure 7-1 for a timeline represertation of those and other contacts
during this phase). Seaborn was to tell DRV leadership that the US had
limited objectives in Vietnam. The US commitment was to the inaependence
and teiritorial integrity of South Vietnam so that the people there could
freely and peacefully choose thei- '.in form of government; and, triat US
military activities were not aimed at North Vietnam, only at ýjorthern
infiltrators operating in the South.
Seaborn was also instructed to say
that the US believed Hanoi -ontrolled the military operations of the NLF
(evidenced
by the nearly c-.r:ylete cease-fires that had occurred on the
DRV's orders at Tet in both 1963 and 1964), and ,lanted them to stop the
military and materiel support of the NLF.
Seaborn's effo,-ts were unsuccessful, [, was told by
DFV leaders that ther-e was nothing to negotiate abouc.
rhe wounding of over 100 Americ-an GI's during a wellcoordinated
VC attack on the US adviser's garrissn and adjacent heliport at
[ Pleiku on February 7, 1965, was a challenge that LBJ and his aavisers could
not "tur,, cheek to." The P'eiku incident gave the US reason to no longer
p~i
7-19