◆ SpookStack

THE NEGOTIATION PUZZLE 65 policy toward Vietnam and much of Southeast Asia for vears. These misleading guidelines are recapitulated here as keys for understanding the negotiation puzzle and the kind of proposals that might bring a settlement. The first such false premise is that this “dirty little war” can be won. Policy makers in the United States seem to think that the National Liberation Front and North Vietnam can be bombed, burned, or starved into submission and that then a settlement advantageous to the United States and the forces it is backing can be reached. But this is to misread the special nature and the thirty-year history of the Communist- nationalist movement in Vietnam. The National Liberation Front and the North Vietnamese are fired with crusading zeal, Their determination to resist United States intrusion renders victory impossible in any compiete sense. Thus far every escalation on the part of the United States has led to a corresponding effort by the Vietnamese nationalists and Communists, backed by increasing commitments from the Soviet Union and China. The second unrealistic premise is that this is a war of aggression by the North Vietnamese instigated by China against the South. Such a view distorts the origin of the conflict, the role of the National Liberation Front, and the actual relationship between Hanoi and Peking. This is essentially a civil war. True, the Na- tional Liberation Front receives increasing support from the North Victnamese, but the revolt in South Vietnam was begun and is still sustained by groups of South Vietnamese who turned against the Saigon government. Resistance against the Saigon government is likely to continue, gaining much propaganda advantage fram the US. military operation. There is no reason to believe that the National Liberation Front will disappear from the scene. It is probably now the strongest indigenous political force in South Vietnam. Peking ts offering support for what it considers a move- ment of liberation, but it is clear that the support thus far has not had a significant effect on the course of the conflict. False premise number three is the assumption that if Vietnam becomes a Communist state, all the other countrics in Southeast Asia will follow “like a row of dominoes.” Vietnam is the setting for a unique convergence of nationalism and Communism. What happens there will not necessarily determine developments in other