DensleyBlair: When I was researching how Singapore historically got expelled from Malaysia, I thought to myself "I can rework this to be the product of Chinese meddling in other countries' affairs."
My approach to this alternate history Mainland China is based on two things. The first is "China Without Tears", an alternate history essay by Modern China specialist Arthur Waldron. In it, Waldron speculates that had Chiang Kai-shek remained in control of Mainland China instead of being forced to withdraw to Formosa/Taiwan by the Communist Chinese, then Mainland China would have become a major economic power decades before she actually did under the Communists. The second is the Cold War Mod for HOI2, which has several economic development and territorial claim events that trigger after the Nationalists win the Chinese Civil War. Both of these inspired me to take the route that I am currently taking in regards to the ROC.
Having China go to war with the Americans and the British is something that I have been developing for years. Now I am getting to the point in the story where the Western Pacific War of 1967 goes from being an idea in my head to actually being written. I know exactly how it is going to play out and what the international effects of the naval conflict will be.
You are right about Vietnam. Even after the peace agreement is signed, America is still going to have problems with South Vietnam to contend with. Then there's North Vietnam. Will she abide by the peace agreement in the long run? Or will there be a Second Vietnam War someday in the future?
For me, there's two natural ending points for this AAR: the peace agreement which ends the Vietnam War and the 1968 Presidential election. Having written out the ending of the Vietnam War, I am feeling more inclined to end this AAR now rather than continue on to 1968. It just feels like a natural point in which to end this AAR about the Vietnam War. I think back to the AARs El Pip wrote about Slovakia and Norway. He ended both of those AARs when those two countries fell to the enemy. Now that the Vietnam War is about to end diplomatically, I have decided to end this AAR and pick up from where I left off in the next AAR.
As for the 'final word' on Vietnam, that won't come until the next AAR.
Kurt_Steiner: Well said.
El Pip: I do find that to be utterly ironic. Indeed, there are people in England who still view Butler through the prism of his failed appeasement approach to Nazi Germany...a view he is quite aware of.
If Lee had his way, Singapore would still be a part of Malaysia. However, Malaya doesn't want to have anything more to do with Singapore and China is more than willing to throw money at Singapore in order to get an alliance with her. While Lee certainly has his principles, Chiang has money...and as we have seen, money can trump principles if you give enough.
This is it. After 12 years and 111 pages, this AAR is officially ending with back-to-back updates. As I said, I think the time is right story-wise.
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The End of War
(In 1966, a made-for-TV band called the Monkees scored two #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: “First Train to Clarksville” and “I’m a Believer”)
1966 was a year of many things. The Beatles, the biggest band in the world, experienced backlash in the United States after John Lennon expressed his view to Maureen Cleave of the “London Evening Standard” that he and his bandmates
“are more popular than Jesus.”
While the British didn't find this comment to be offensive, Americans were so outraged by it that Lennon was forced to issue an apology. The Fab Four, worn out by constant touring and wanting to do more with their music, ended their third North American tour at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California with the bombshell announcement that they would quit touring and just focus on recording in the studio. Meanwhile the Beach Boys, known for their surfing and car songs, showed off their artistic growth by releasing their highly acclaimed and influential 11th studio album “Pet Sounds”. The Miranda rights came into existence after the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Miranda v. Arizona that law enforcement officials were required to inform arrested suspects that they have
“the right to remain silent, and that anything he says will be used against him in court; he must be clearly informed that he has the right to consult with a lawyer and to have the lawyer with him during interrogation, and that, if he is indigent, a lawyer will be appointed to represent him.”
In the world of sports, 1966 saw the National Football League and the American Football League agree to merge into a single professional American football league with two conferences, giving birth to the annual Super Bowl. At Wembley Stadium in London, England defeated Germany 4-2 to win the 1966 FIFA World Cup. In the world of entertainment, Caesars Palace and the Metropolitan Opera House opened their doors in Las Vegas, Nevada and New York City respectively. The Monkees made their debut on television and in music, along with “Star Trek” (NBC) and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” (CBS). Novelist Truman Capote threw a lavish masquerade ball at the Plaza Hotel in New York City known as “The Party of the Century” due to its’ impressive guest list, which included everybody of importance from First Lady Roberta Forbes and Andy Warhol to former British monarch Edward VIII and Frank Sinatra. Finally, Walt Disney publicly unveiled his last project before his death at the age of 65: Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), a utopian planned city to be built near Orlando, Florida. Hugely ambitious, and incredibly expensive, EPCOT was abandoned by Disney’s own company following his death.
(Created by Gene Roddenberry, “Star Trek” starred William Shatner as James T. Kirk, the Captain of the starship USS Enterprise. Each week, Kirk and his crew explored strange new worlds, sought out new life and new civilizations, and boldly went where no one had gone before)
For President Malcolm Forbes, 1966 began with a mixture of frustration and hope over the Vietnam War. Militarily, the war in Southeast Asia had gone incredibly well for him during his first year in office. After decisively defeating the Viet Cong in the Mekong Delta, the Americans had used their superior military strength to bring a grinding halt to the seemingly-unstoppable North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam. Through a series of tough battles, the US had pushed the enemy back across the Demilitarized Zone into North Vietnam. She then turned the tables, launching a limited invasion of the country with the aim of eliminating the Viet Cong as a fighting force. Once this was accomplished, the Americans strategically withdrew back to below the DMZ. By the end of 1965, South Vietnam was militarily secure, with not a single enemy soldier anywhere within the country. This success didn’t come cheaply, however. The United States had suffered heavy causalities during the course of the fighting, helping to fuel an angry and outspoken anti-war movement on the home front. Diplomatically, the Vietnam War was in a stalemate at the end of year. An attempt by Washington to enter into peace negotiations with Hanoi had been rejected by North Vietnamese hawks, who wanted to continue the war despite demands from North Vietnamese doves to put an end to what they regarded as being a lost cause. Steve Forbes, then attending a private college-preparatory boarding school in Massachusetts, came to Washington to spend Thanksgiving with his parents and siblings. The younger Forbes later recalled his father feeling
“stuck” by his inability to convince the North Vietnamese to come to the negotiation table.
“My father saw the Vietnam War as no longer being necessary. I mean, we had accomplished what we had set out to do there. He very much wanted to end it. That he couldn’t, and didn’t know how to, bothered him a great deal. More than anything else.”
If the President was feeling frustrated during Thanksgiving, by Christmas he was seeing a glimmer of hope that negotiations to end the war could actually be conducted. That glimmer had come from the unlikeliest of all places: England. Throughout the fighting in Vietnam, the British had remained neutral. To them, South Vietnam was the wrong place to, in the words of Prime Minister Rab Butler,
“take a firm stand against China.”
They believed the country was too mired by serious military and political problems to be an effective bulwark against Chinese ambitions in the region. Whereas the Americans believed those problems could be overcome eventually, the British regarded those problems as dooming South Vietnam in the long run. During a meeting with Forbes, Butler had advised him that
“You cannot save a country that cannot stand on its’ own two feet.”
To him, American military successes in the Vietnam War were doing nothing to address South Vietnam’s internal weaknesses. Furthermore, the country was geographically vulnerable to being surrounded on three sides by her enemies. Given all of Saigon’s deeply-rooted problems, it was Butler’s long view that sooner or later the utterly incompetent South Vietnamese government would collapse and the country would be lost. He thought Thailand, which was more robust internally and presented more defensible terrain,
“is a much better place in which to draw the line than Vietnam.”
However, by late 1965, Butler had begun to rethink his country’s hands-off approach to Vietnam. China had first encouraged Malaya and Singapore to split up, and then forged an alliance with the new island nation. Singapore, now another foothold for the Chinese in Southeast Asia, summarily withdrew from the Commonwealth of Nations. This turn of events prompted the British government to reassess their position in the region. Their biggest military base in the region was in Hong Kong, which sat right off the southern coast of China. In 1961, the Chinese government had unilaterally declared the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing, which ceded Hong Kong to the British, to be null and void. Her justification was that it had been an unequal treaty which the British had imposed on the Chinese after they lost the First Opium War. Nanjing, looking to avenge what she considered to be a “century of humiliation” (1839-1947) at the hands of foreign powers, demanded that London cede Hong Kong back to her. London promptly said
“No.”
(Prime Minister Rab Butler, seen here with Secretary of State Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.)
Since then, the two countries had been locked in a standoff over the island city. Steadfast British refusal to grant China her territorial demand on Hong Kong was making a military conflict between the two powers look increasingly likely. Butler, who vowed to keep Hong Kong in British hands, saw the new Sino-Singaporean alliance as posing a threat to his country's interests. The Chinese, he predicted, would use Singapore to further surround and isolate Hong Kong. The island, with its’ size 10 naval and air bases, had to be held at all cost. If Hong Kong fell, it would be a devastating blow to the British military presence in Asia. It would allow the Chinese to tighten their control over the South China Sea, helping to expand their dominance in the region. Butler himself didn’t see how his Premiership could survive losing Hong Kong. He remarked in private that in the event the Chinese took the disputed island city by military force,
“I see no recourse for myself other than to resign from this office.”
Not wanting to be remembered by history as being “The Prime Minister who lost Hong Kong”, Butler greatly beefed up the island’s military defenses. He also sought to dissuade the Chinese from seeking a military solution to this territorial dispute by forging a united front with the Americans. The Jackson Administration, recognizing the importance of Hong Kong in trying to contain this common enemy, had pledged to help defend the city with Operation Orient Express. According to the plan drawn up by the Pentagon, in the event the Chinese attacked Hong Kong, American soldiers would immediately be transported from the Philippines to Hong Kong to provide the British defenders with reinforcements. During a 1961 visit to the British colony, then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had declared that
“Hong Kong will not stand alone!”
While Operation Orient Express was all well and good, what Butler felt he needed the most from the Americans was their undivided political and military attention in dealing with the ROC. This he couldn’t get because of the current stalemate in Vietnam. As long as Hanoi refused to discuss peace with Washington, Butler knew he wasn’t going to get the full focus from his ally that he wanted. Motivated by his own national interests, the Prime Minister decided in the final weeks of 1965 to seek an end to the Vietnam War.
(Hong Kong in 1965. This photo shows some of the British naval ships stationed in her waters)
The ball got rolling on December 15th, when British Ambassador David Ormsby-Gore called on the President at the White House. Hailing from an aristocratic family, Ormsby-Gore was the great-grandson of Lord Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, who served three separate times as Prime Minister between June 1885 and July 1902. Highly educated, the Ambassador had been at his post since October 1963, when his predecessor Harold Macmillan resigned the Ambassadorship and returned to England due to health issues. Forbes found Ormsby-Gore to be friendly and easy to deal with; for his part, the Ambassador felt it was important to be on good terms with the President given the Special Relationship their two countries shared. When informed by his appointment secretary that Ormsby-Gore had called to see him, Forbes instructed his secretary to tell the Ambassador
“that he can come see me as soon as he wants.”
Upon his arrival at the White House, Ormsby-Gore was led into the Oval Office. Happy to see him, Forbes shook his hands and directed him to take a seat on the couch. Sitting down on the couch opposite his, the President opened the conversation with casual small talk about the Christmas decorations adorning the Executive Mansion. After commenting on the decorations, which he thought were
“nice”, the Ambassador stated that he had two reasons for his visit. The first had to do with his country's African colony of Rhodesia. In an effort to avoid transitioning to black-majority rule, which was a prerequisite for being granted independence by London, the white-minority government had recently issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from British colonial rule. The Forbes Administration refused to recognize Rhodesia's independence, to which the Ambassador relayed his government’s thanks. Ormsby-Gore further thanked Forbes for agreeing to adopt economic sanctions on Rhodesian exports like agricultural goods and metals. The sharply-dressed Ambassador described the Rhodesian government’s action of declaring independence without the consent of his government to be an
“act of rebellion against the Crown,” to which the nerdy-looking President reiterated his Administration’s stance on not recognizing Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe)
“under any circumstances.”
The second reason for the Ambassador’s visit was Vietnam. He noted that while North Vietnam had received a bloody nose, she was unwilling to deal with her enemy at the peace table.
“That’s right,” the President said with exasperation.
“They don’t want to negotiate with us.”
“Then perhaps what is needed here is a different approach.”
Intrigued, Forbes asked Ormsby-Gore what he had in mind. He answered that rather than try to engage directly with North Vietnam on her own, the United States should consider the use of a neutral third-party mediator. Someone who had no prior involvement in the war and therefore was in a better political position to facilitate meaningful negotiations.
“Like you?” the President asked.
“Yes,” the Ambassador answered.
“Her Majesty’s government, recognizing the trouble you are presently having in seeking a conclusion to this war in Vietnam, is willing to offer her services in the name of peace.”
With England being a major world power, Ormsby-Gore contended that his country possessed the international diplomatic clout needed to be a viable mediator. Delegates from the United States and the two Vietnams could meet on neutral ground in London and work out a settlement that would end the present fighting. Forbes was surprised that the British all of a sudden wanted to get involved in Vietnam, having previously refused to be involved. At the same time, he found it to be an attractive option. It was attractive because at that moment, the Americans didn’t have any other ideas about how to bring the war to an end.
“If we can get everyone to agree to talk [in London],” Secretary of State Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. stated after being briefed on the British proposal,
“Then maybe we can get somewhere. Right now, we are not getting anywhere.”
(Ambassador David Ormsby-Gore)
With the United States on board, the British then submitted their proposal to the two Vietnams. South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu signaled a willingness to engage in talks with the North Vietnamese. That willingness stemmed from the humiliation Saigon was feeling at the end of 1965. The performance of the South Vietnamese military in the war had been embarrassing to say the least. Although there were a few victories against the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong, those victories were vastly outweighed by the heavy number of defeats the South Vietnamese Army had endured. They had demonstrated for all the world to see their ineptitude in defending their own country from the enemy. Without the American military there to stop them, it is very likely the North Vietnamese could have marched all the way to Saigon, bulldozing hapless South Vietnamese divisions. Then there was the ill-advised decision by the South Vietnamese military following the invasion of North Vietnam to attack Hanoi. The Battle of Hanoi was a complete disaster for the foolish attackers, as they were unable to penetrate Hanoi’s formidable defenses.
“The South Vietnamese have lost a lot of their men,” commanding US General Maxwell Taylor cabled Washington afterwards,
“Fighting a symbolic battle that in wise prudence they should never have fought.”
Having been driven out of North Vietnam, the South Vietnamese were left licking their wounds. With his army being an international laughing stock, and faced with growing opposition from his country’s Buddhist population over the way his military regime was running things, Thieu felt compelled to seek peace with the North. A peace agreement would eliminate the military threat from the North, giving Thieu breathing space in which to both improve his army and deal with the Buddhist opposition.
(A South Vietnamese soldier, wounded when he was shot in the head by the enemy)
With both the United States and South Vietnam signing onto the British proposal, all that remained was getting North Vietnam on board. Hanoi was deeply divided over what to do about the mediation offer. The hawks, who had prevailed in rejecting the earlier American attempt to negotiate an end to the war, wanted to reject the new offer and keep the war going. Having driven the enemy out of their country, they were calling for another assault on Hue despite the heavy presence of US troops there. The doves were getting fed up with their stubborn insistence on continuing the war. Having seen half their country get occupied by the enemy, they wanted peace…and they wanted it now. The hawks thought they would again get their way, but they had lost two important allies. The first was President Ho Chi Minh. It was Ho’s stated objective to overthrow the South Vietnamese government and bring about reunification of the two Vietnams under his Communist leadership. Once it became clear to him that reunification was militarily out of his reach, Ho agreed with the hawks to keep the war going in order to inflict as many casualties on the enemy as possible. The thinking was that the Americans would suffer such heavy losses that their invasion of North Vietnam would fail. The invasion however spooked Ho when it reached the gates of Hanoi, prompting his evacuation to Haiphong. Although the Americans went no further and withdrew from the country, the fact that they got all the way to the capital despite facing stiff resistance forced the 75-year-old North Vietnamese President to change his mind about continuing the war.
“The Americans are our strongest enemies,” he declared,
“We need to get rid of them.”
This sentiment was shared by Prime Minister Pham Van Dong. Ho’s right-hand man, Dong expressed his regret over agreeing to reject America’s peace overture prior to their invasion. As much as he wanted to reunify the two Vietnams, he felt at this point that it was much more imperative to safeguard the sovereignty of North Vietnam. The invasion had come too close for his comfort; as long as the Americans had a significant presence in South Vietnam, that threat to the Communist regime remained. If the Americans could invade North Vietnam once, what could stop them from doing it again? Realizing that peace was the only way now to protect his country from enduring any further attacks, Dong told the hawks that
“We need to come to an agreement with the Americans.”
With the top two leaders throwing their support behind the doves, the hawks were outflanked. The doves finally prevailed in making the securing of peace the official policy of the North Vietnamese government.
(President Ho Chi Minh, left, and Prime Minister Pham Van Dong)
On January 3rd, 1966, Dong publicly announced that his government was willing to accept Butler’s offer of mediation. However, there was a catch. Although he had sided with the doves, the Prime Minister threw in a condition for talks: the United States needed to stop bombing his country. Launched in September 1964, Operation Rolling Thunder had seen the US gradually escalate their bombing of North Vietnamese targets. The communication system, industries, infrastructure, airfields, defense installations, and port facilities were all hit. As devastating as the bombings were, they were also taking a heavy toll on the attackers. North Vietnam had developed a formidable and sophisticated air defense system that regularly shot American planes out of the sky. Seeking a cessation of the bombing campaign, Dong decided to use the proposed peace talks as leverage. If the Americans wanted to meet with the North Vietnamese in London, an end to Operation Rolling Thunder was the price they had to pay. This condition divided the Forbes Administration along typical lines. The Joint Chiefs of Staff strongly urged the President to keep Operation Rolling Thunder going. Without any major fighting on the ground, they regarded the destruction the bombing campaign was inflicting as the way to keep the pressure on Hanoi.
“What the North Vietnamese are saying,” according to Joint Chief Chairman David L. McDonald,
“Is that if we don’t stop the bombing, there won’t be any talks. That, Mr. President, is blackmail.”
Lodge and Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze strongly urged the President to grant the concession.
“After all this time,” Lodge declared in his upper-class New England accent,
“The opportunity is finally before us in which meaningful negotiations with the North can be conducted that can bring this war to an end. We should not risk that opportunity for peace by rejecting the North’s demand to halt the bombing as the military would like us to do.”
As he said that, he shot McDonald a disapproving look. McDonald glared right back at him. Nitze concurred with Lodge, adding that
“We are presently losing a lot of our planes, and our pilots, through attrition. Those losses, I think, are unnecessary at this point.”
As was his normal habit, Vice President Everett Dirksen didn’t say much at first during the debate. He listened to the two sides hash out their arguments before putting in his two cents. Dirksen wasn’t opposed to halting the bombing if it allowed for productive peace talks. At the same time however, he felt that the Joint Chiefs had made a valid point about Operation Rolling Thunder. As it was the primary source of pressure the Americans were exerting on the North Vietnamese,
“If we stop bombing them, and then they walk away from the negotiations, I think we will have to resume the bombing in order to pressure them back into negotiating with us.”
“Gentlemen,” the President began,
“Like Henry said, the question before us is this: should we risk this chance for peace…our only chance, really…by rejecting this condition by the North? I think the answer has to be ‘No’. I don’t think it is unreasonable to stop the bombing while the negotiations are taking place. Besides, what else is there in North Vietnam to bomb?”
McDonald quickly responded to Forbes’ rhetorical question by pointing out that the country’s dike system, which had been laboriously constructed to control flooding in the Red River Delta and artificially irrigate 80% of the rice grown there, hadn’t been targeted yet. Lodge rolled his eyes upon hearing this.
“We have been over this, Admiral. Those dikes are off limits to bombing. We are not going to destroy them and drown and starve thousands of civilians.”
Before tensions between the Secretary of State and the Joint Chiefs Chairman could escalate any further, the President steered the conversation back to the topic at hand.
“I am prepared, gentlemen, for the sake of getting a peace deal, to order an immediate halt to the bombing. But…”
He glanced over at his Vice President and gave a nod of agreement.
“I am also prepared to order the immediate resumption of bombing should it be necessary.”
The President decided to issue his public response to Dong’s condition in dramatic fashion. On January 12th, he appeared before a joint-session of Congress to deliver his first State of the Union Address. With Dirksen and Speaker of the House Gerald Ford sitting behind him at the podium, Forbes announced that
“The United States is prepared tonight to take whatever steps are necessary to begin the talks for peace, including the immediate halt to the bombing of North Vietnam that is presently underway.”
In stating his willingness to accept Dong’s condition, the President also made it
“absolutely clear” that the halt would be tied directly to North Vietnam’s performance at the British-mediated talks.
“While the United States stands ready tonight to meet with the representatives of North Vietnam at the conference table in good faith, the United States will not stand by and do nothing if those representatives abandon the discussions of peace. Should Hanoi show bad faith by walking away after we had agreed to their request to halt the bombing, we will no longer be bound to continue to honor our end of the agreement. The bombing will resume, and it will continue until the North Vietnamese recognize the grave error they had committed to the cause of peace and return to the conference table.”
After 16 months, Operation Rolling Thunder officially came to an end the next day. With American bombs no longer falling on his country, Dong publicly announced he was sending a delegation to England. With the final piece of the puzzle now in place, the London Peace Conference was scheduled to begin on February 1st. To head the US delegation, Forbes chose Lodge. Talking to reporters before he boarded his flight to the British capital, the Secretary of State proclaimed that he wouldn’t
“return home until we have a peace deal in place.”
Asked about the forthcoming peace talks on “Meet the Press” (NBC), Senate Minority Leader Hubert Humphrey, an outspoken liberal opponent of the Vietnam War, expressed his desire to see the talks succeed
“so we can begin the process of bringing our troops home from Vietnam.”
He added that he wished
“Secretary Lodge all the best as he embarks on this endeavor for peace.”
On the other end of the political spectrum, Lodge faced skepticism from leading conservative intellectual William F. Buckley Jr. Editor-in-chief of the editorial magazine “National Review” (and starting in April 1966, the host of the public affairs television show “Firing Line”), Buckley was a staunch anti-Communist who didn’t believe the North Vietnamese could be trusted to abide by the terms of whatever peace agreement was reached. He opined that in his zeal to negotiate peace in Vietnam, Lodge was setting himself up to be the next Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain was the ill-fated British Prime Minister who in September 1938 boastfully waved the Munich Agreement he had negotiated in the air, which ceded the predominantly German Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany in exchange for what he called
“Peace for our time.”
A year later, that peace was shattered when Germany declared war on Poland. In the wake of the German invasions of Denmark and Norway, Chamberlain was pressured into resigning in April 1940.
(London in 1966)
With hope riding high that an end to the Vietnam War was finally near, the London Peace Conference commenced on February 1st. Welcoming the American and Vietnamese delegations to his country, Butler expressed his confidence that the conference would produce
“a fair agreement that will lead to the cessation of the present hostilities and to the establishment of a lasting peace in Southeast Asia.”
Going into the talks, the three delegations each had a specific goal they wanted to accomplish:
- The Americans wanted the North Vietnamese to recognize the sovereignty of South Vietnam and pledge to stop trying to conquer her
- The North Vietnamese wanted the Americans to completely withdraw from South Vietnam
- The South Vietnamese wanted the North Vietnamese to leave them alone
In his dealings with Xuan Thuy, the 53-year-old North Vietnamese Foreign Minister who was the head of his country’s delegation, Lodge found him to be a difficult and downright annoying negotiator. Thuy, whose name meant “Spring Water” in Vietnamese, had been a devoted follower of Ho since he was a teenager. From his humble beginning as a Communist newspaper editor, Thuy had risen through the political ranks to become his country’s Foreign Minister in 1963. Throughout the conference, he launched long anti-American tirades every chance he got. According to an historian:
“Thuy didn’t want to make the peace talks easy for the Americans. He wanted to get under their skin, to give them a hard time every day until they reached an agreement.”
It worked. Time and again, Lodge chafed at Thuy’s lashing out at the Americans for invading his country and for other wrongs he claimed the Americans had committed before progress on the talks could be made. Later on in his memoir, the Secretary of State wrote that his North Vietnamese counterpart
“was a dreadful fellow to face across the table day after day.”
(North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Xuan Thuy)
The London Peace Conference lasted for five weeks, as the two sides negotiated the terms of the peace agreement. North Vietnam, conceding that achieving reunification with South Vietnam through military force was out of her reach for the foreseeable future, agreed to diplomatically recognize the Thieu government in Saigon. To help normalize relations between their two countries, the North Vietnamese proposed and the South Vietnamese accepted a trade deal: Northern coal in exchange for Southern rice (North Vietnam was experiencing a drought at the time, which hurt rice production). A major sticking point for the talks emerged when Thuy demanded that the United States fully withdraw her forces from South Vietnam. South Vietnamese Foreign Minister Tran Van Do, the intellectual head of his country’s delegation, protested the demand. His country regarded America’s superior firepower as being their shield against the North Vietnamese Army, which had very nearly vanquished the inferior South Vietnamese Army. Lodge himself told Thuy that his demand constituted
“a clear violation of our right to station our troops within the borders of the nations we are allied with.”
An unimpressed Thuy shot back that his country regarded America’s military presence as
“a threat to our national sovereignty, a threat we will not tolerate.”
Perhaps stalling for time, Lodge stated that he needed to consult with his government first before he could issue a response to Thuy’s demand. Returning to the modernist US Embassy (adorned with a large gilded aluminum bald eagle) in Grosvenor Square, he relayed the demand to Washington and asked for guidance on how he should respond. When President Henry M. Jackson publicly unveiled his plan to wage the Vietnam War in April 1962, he explained to the American people that once the Viet Cong had been completely eliminated, the majority of the combat troops deployed to Vietnam would be withdrawn. A small garrison would remain in South Vietnam to help provide security. Leaving those troops behind had always been part of the plan. Now the North Vietnamese were making the removal of every American soldier a condition for peace.
(South Vietnamese Foreign Minister Tran Van Do)
While Forbes had attempted to stay the course in Vietnam upon taking office, continuing Scoop’s plan unaltered, events forced him to change course. First, he made the decision to order a limited invasion of North Vietnam, which was never part of the original plan. Now, with peace hinging on keeping the talks in London going, the Republican President decided to make another change to his Democratic predecessor’s plan. Lodge was instructed by Washington to issue a counter-demand: Soviet and Chinese forces had to reciprocally withdraw from North Vietnam.
“I think I can sell our full withdrawal from South Vietnam to the American people and to Congress,” Forbes predicted to Under Secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon, who was serving as Acting Secretary while Lodge was on the other side of the Atlantic,
“If we can get everyone to fully withdraw as well.”
When the talks resumed and the distinguished head of the American delegation offered
“to completely remove all our soldiers provided that the Russians and the Chinese are completely removed from your country,” he found Thuy willing to accept it. Why? Because the North Vietnamese were weary of having Chinese combat troops within their borders. Whereas North Vietnam’s alliance with the Soviet Union was based on a shared Communist ideology, her alliance with the Republic of China was based solely on having a common enemy: the United States of America. Despite accepting Chinese support in their war against South Vietnam and America, the North Vietnamese were distrustful of their ally for two reasons:
- There was a historical enmity between the Vietnamese and the Chinese, going back 1,000 years
- There was uncertainty about China’s expansionist foreign policy
Did the ROC really regard North Vietnam as a true and equal ally, as she was claiming? Or was she secretly preparing to militarily absorb North Vietnam into her sphere of influence, as she had done with Laos? Even as Ho was appealing to Nanjing to provide him with more support after the war went downhill, he didn’t know exactly where he stood with the opportunist, back-stabbing Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek. This lack of trust, combined with the fear that Nanjing might stab Hanoi in the back, made the presence of Chinese troops in North Vietnam highly controversial. It took all of Ho’s leadership skills to get the Politburo to go along with permitting the stationing of Chinese soldiers (like those seen below) on North Vietnamese soil.
Now that the Vietnam War was from a military standpoint over, the North Vietnamese were anxious to find a way to get rid of the Chinese soldiers before they could possibly turn against them…while at the same time not letting the world know she was secretly afraid of her own so-called “ally”. The Americans unwittingly gave it to them. By agreeing to the mutual withdraw of foreign troops, Hanoi could evict the Chinese under the guise of
“We are only having you leave the country because of the terms of the peace agreement, not because we really don’t trust you at all.”
Under the reciprocal agreement worked out by the Americans and the North Vietnamese, all international troops would be removed from the two Vietnams by January 1st, 1969. When Do balked at the idea that his country should lose her international military support, Lodge took him into a private room. Authorized by Washington to get tough on their ally if he needed to, the Secretary of State firmly warned his Southern Vietnamese counterpart not to jeopardize the talks.
“We are here to negotiate an end to this war. We are doing just that. These terms are the only terms we are going to get, so don’t think for a moment you are going to get any better terms by rejecting the terms we have right now.”
Returning to the circular conference table – which had been deliberately chosen to symbolize the equality of the three parties – with a browbeaten Do in tow, Lodge informed Thuy that South Vietnam would agree to the reciprocal withdrawal. Once that hurdle had been cleared, the final pieces fell into place. On March 8th, five weeks after the London Peace Conference began, the White House Press Corps was instructed by the Press Secretary to go to the Oval Office, where the President would make a statement. The correspondents entered the room to find Forbes sitting behind his desk, flanked by Dirksen and Dillon.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began,
“I have just spoken with the leadership of Congress. I have told them what I am about to tell you. I have received word from our delegation in London that a peace agreement to end the war in Vietnam has been reached.”
There was an immediate air of electricity in the room. The correspondents, having been given major news directly from the President himself, couldn’t wait to rush out of the room and inform their respective news organizations. However, no one could leave the Oval Office until United Press International correspondent Helen Thomas uttered her signature closer
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
The President’s announcement dominated the evening news and the front pages of newspapers, with "The New York Times" running the next-day headline:
FORBES ANNOUNCES VIETNAM PEACE PACT
Four years after Jackson had deployed combat troops to Vietnam, peace was now at hand. On March 10th, with the international news media in front of them, and the British Prime Minister looming behind them, Lodge, Thuy, and Do sat down together at a rectangular table and signed the London Peace Accords.
“This was a negotiated peace agreement in every sense of the word,” Lodge later wrote in his memoir.
“It required each of us, representing our respective nations, to make sacrifices in order to make this agreement possible.”
In making peace, the United States had to give up her right to station troops in South Vietnam, North Vietnam had to abandon her goal of reunification, and South Vietnam had to say goodbye to her international military support. Peace meant preserving the status quo, in which the two Vietnams, with completely different governments, lived side-by-side. While Hanoi and Saigon were never going to be best friends, they would at least learn to tolerate each other. Addressing the nation that night from the Oval Office, the President hailed the London Peace Accords as being
“the result, not of victorious powers imposing their will on their vanquished adversaries, but of three nations negotiating in good faith, sharing the mutual desire to end the brutal hardship of war and to establish an honorable peace for all those involved.”