0 - The Black Vault

THE BO3V CORPORATION
remained adamant in refusing to enter into talks as long as the bombing of
the North coninued. And the efforts of allies of both sides to arrange
talks tended to convince each that the other wis insincere about negotiations
in the fi-st place, During these years, the search for a basis for
negutiation was also complicated by the fact that, to both the US and the
DRV, the war appeared winnable. That is, by 19G7, in the view of the USG,
the political and military situation in RVN had diramatically improved over
what it had been in 1964 and 1965. And Hanoi saw victory because it was
beginning to expand
authority of the GVN
its political control to areas under the nominal
ano it saw the US presence (and thereby the US impact
on the long-term revolutionary struggle) as only temporary. 75/
The shock of the DRV's Tet offensive led to a change in
the US position on bombing. President Johnson, his policy of persistence
in support of South Vietnam severo1y shaken,
bombing,
But as in Korea,
ordered a limitation of the
withdrew from the election race and invited the DRV to negotiate.
the start of formal negotiations in Paris in 1968 did not
signal the beginning of the end of the war.
9) Analysis of the Mid-Phase Initiatives
The search for negotiations with the DRV during this
phdse is crobably one 3f the most. fr!,itiess chapters in the history of US
diplomacy. White House sources 76/ reportedly estimated as many aa 2,000
individual efforts were made to initiate talks. Or 432 of the over 800
days of the air war against the DRV, US aircraft were either restricted in
their targets or :ompletely prohibited from bombing in the hope of encouraging
a favorable North Vietnamese response to a negotiating initiative.
V ,In his memoirs, Preside.,t Johnson noted that there were some seventy-two
negotiations initiatives which he personally followed (those listed in
Figure 7-3 were considered by LBJ to he the most significarn ).77/
"As I look back," President Johnson said of the efforts
to start negotiations, "I think that we perhaps tried too hard to spell out
our honest desire for peace ....
These numerous appeals through so many
channels may well have convinced the North Vietnamese that we wanted peace
at any price."78/ Johnson and hls advisers were, in fact, pessimistic
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