THE CURRENT POSITION OF HANOI AND PEIPING ON A NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT IN VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00472A000700010023-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 3, 2003
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: February 23, 1965
• Content Type: MEMO

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OCI No. 0930/65
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Office of Current Intelligence
23 February 1965
MEMORANDUM FOR THE DIRECTOR
The Current Position of Hanoi and,Peiping
n a ego a e a emen n e earn
1. According to press reports from Paris the
Vietnamese Communists'have recently urged the French
to step up their efforts aimed at arranging a ne-
gotiated settlement of the war in South Vietnam.
These accounts are probably leaks of discussions
between French officials and Asian Communist lkep-
resentatives which began in December and continued
on into February.
e nave seen no ng n ommun s
s a emen s or in Communist behavior which would
support the contention that either Hanoi or Pei-
ping is interested in a conference solution ex-
cept on its own terms.
3. All indications are that the DRV is no
more flexible now than it ever was in regard to
a negotiated settlement. On 10 February Hanoi
specifically reiterated its standard demands,
stressing the two key concepts on which the Com-
munists have always insisted--the necessity for
withdrawal of US forces from'South Vietnam and
the initiation of bilateral negotiations between
the Communist Liberation Front (NLSV) and the gov-
ernment in Saigon, 'DRV officials., moreover, have
privately taken the same line in conversations
with Western diplomats in Hanoi,
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4. The DRV's terms which have not changed.sub-
stantially since they were first put forward in 1963:,,
include:
A. Withdrawal of US military personnel
and equipment is a precondition for
any serious negotiations.
B. The South Vietnamese government must
abide by the military provisions of
the Geneva agreements: refrain from
any military alliances, permit no for-
eign military bases or foreign military'
personnel in South Vietnam.
C. The South Vietnamese people must be per-
mitted to settle their internal affairs
without outside interference. in accord-
ance with the program of the Front.
This is interpreted as the formulation
of a coalition government with Front
participation.
D. Consultation must take place between
the two, zones looking toward eventual
reunification.
E. As of July 1964 Hanoi has included as
a further condition anr'end 'to US "provo-
cations" against DRV territory.
5. The recent activities of North Vietnamese
agents in Paris suggest' that Hanoi is seeking to
stimulate French pressure for a US withdrawal as the
first step toward a negotiated settlement of the "im
passe" in Indochina. These maneuvers by the Commu-
nists appear designed mainly to encourage Opposition
in France and elsewhere in the Free World to continued
prosecution of the war against the Viet Cong and to
possible further US attacks against the DRV.
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6. Such motives were suggested by the North
Vietnamese response to French initiatives during
the Paris conversations. Although there was no
give in the position taken by the DRV representa-
tive, he stressed an. interest in continuing the
discussions, doubtless with a view to keeping
French hopes for a negotiated settlement alive.
Similar objectives probably lie behind the re-
cent propaganda from Hanoi, which has reported
without comment the substance of French and Cam-
bodian calls for a new international conference
on Indochina, There is, however, no evidence
available to us that the North Vietnamese are giv-
ing serious consideration to a conference.
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7. The Chinese have consistently backed
Hanoi's hard line concerning negotiations and do
not appear interested, at this time, even in the
kind of talks which might be exploited under
some circumstances to give Communist forces a
breathing space.
8. The Chinese Communists are almost cer-
tainly optimistic concerning developments in
South Vietnam. The conversations initiated by
the Chinese in Paris were apparently designed
to obtain a better reading on these questions,
and at the same time to stimulate new French
pressure on the US to withdraw quietly from the
"hopeless" impasse in Indochina. In this en-
deavor Peiping is playing skillfully on French
ambitions for a larger role in Southeast Asia as
mediators of the Sino-US conflict.
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e ping--like Hano -- as no es re or any
L-JT
agreement except on Communist terms. The Chinese
continue to insist that a unilateral US with-
drawal is the only basis for settlement.
10. Peiping's latest public statement on
the question of possible negotiations ridicules
the idea of talks. A key paragraph of the People's
Daily editorial on 19 February claims that the
US is' hoping to gain at the conference table
what it cannot win on the battlefield and then
dismisses the notion as "too much wishful think-
ing." The Chinese go on to say that peace can
be had in Vietnam at any time but only after the
"US aggressors have withdrawn" to permit the
people in Vietnam to "settle their own problems."
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