Can the Negotiations Bring Peace to Vietnam?

The realities of the Vietnam War, long disregarded by Washington, are at last beginning to assert themselves. That the other side —the NLF and Hanoi—could not achieve a military victory has long been clear. The surprising strength displayed by the enemy in the Tet offensive, and the military, political, and psychological advantages gained through it, have not altered this fact. But the Tet offensive has once more demonstrated that the war cannot be won by the “allies” either.

This, so it seems, President Johnson has at last begun to realize. His longing for peace has no doubt always been genuine, as was his desire to bring it about through negotiations. But until very recently his idea of peace was a political settlement based on a military victory. Unless we believe that the President’s steps to bring about negotiations, and his announced retirement, are merely the first moves of a colo3sal political fraud, then we must speak of a new situation. Even excessive caution, well advised in judging this man, would allow the conclusion that Johnson is now at least considering the abandonment of the course he has pursued in Vietnam since the summer of 1964.

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