Nation: Ho’s Christmas Slam

Despite the Administration’s repeated, unequivocal insistence that it will not accept North Viet Nam’s give-up-and-get-out terms for calling off the Vietnamese war, Washington continues to receive a stream of meretricious reports that Hanoi has decided to negotiate in good faith. Last week, at a time that could hardly have been better calculated to arouse Americans’ hopes of peace and good will, Ho Chi Minh’s latest and least likely offer landed on the world’s front pages.

This time the feeler was extended by a pair of professors from an Italian university—one of them was Giorgio La Pira, onetime mayor of Florence—who purportedly had interviewed Ho and his Premier, Pham Van Dong, early in November. Through U.N. General Assembly President Amintore Fanfani, the would-be diplomatists reported breathlessly that Hanoi was now “prepared to initiate negotiations without first requiring actual withdrawal of American troops.” In an echo of Lyndon Johnson, Ho was even quoted as saying: “I am prepared to go anywhere, to meet anyone.”

As it turned out, Hanoi was not giving an inch in its four hard-line preconditions—which include full U.S. acceptance of the Viet Cong’s program for the communization of South Viet Nam. The only difference this time was that the Communists tried the new gambit of describing their demands as being “in reality the explanation” of the 1954 Geneva accord that divided Viet Nam. Since the Viet Cong had not even existed as an organized military and political force until 1960, it was difficult to accept such reasoning.

Though Rusk replied through Fanfani that he was “far from persuaded” that Hanoi had evinced “real willingness for unconditional negotiations,” he left the Italian door ajar for further proposals. It was soon slammed rudely shut by Hanoi, which derided the entire exchange as “groundless fabrication.”

With no assistance from amateurs, the U.S. has been in day-to-day contact with Hanoi in recent weeks, and the number of communications is increasing. Thus, as Dean Rusk noted recently, “there is no doubt about where the responsibility for the absence of effective discussion and negotiation lies at this stage.”