MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT FROM JOHN P. ROCHE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01720R000500060082-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 19, 2004
• Sequence Number: 82
• Publication Date: March 27, 1967
• Content Type: MF

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March 27, 1967
SECRET
MEMORANDUM FOR
The President
I have been following the negotiation sequence very closely and
have reached the conclusion that we are no longer fighting a
"war" in Vietnam--we are fighting a "negotiation. "
.phis is not intended as a cute play on words--on the contrary,
it has serious consequences for American policy.
At the risk of boring you, let me set out the assumptions on
which this is based:
1. Ho Chi Minh is not jut a radical nationalist like Toure,
Castro, or Sukarno. He is a dedicated Leninist, the last of the
first generation of the Communist International.
2. He is therefore not a simple-minded Vietnamese
chauvinist who, for example, will "not negotiate under pressure. "
I was in the Air Force too long to believe all I read about the effec-
tiveness of bombing. But the view that Ho will not negotiate until
we stop bombing is nonsense.
--it might be true of Castro, who is basically a rornatitic
Latin fascist, a "petty-bourgeois sentimentalist" in. Communist
jargon;
--but Ho--like Lenin at the time of Brest-Litovsk--would
negotiate in cold blood for whatever goals he considers realistic--
even if bombs were coming down his chimney.
3. The behavior of 'a dedicated, intelligent Leninist is
highly predictable. I never doubted that Khrushchev would pull
the missiles out of Cuba in October 1962 (see my letter to the then
Senator Humphrey at Tab A).
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4. A good Leninist looks on the use of force as merely a
variety of politics. He never adopts an inflexible "unconditional
surrender" position, but is always ready to alter the timetable if
the costs of overt aggression become too high.
5. On the basis of various statements that have been emerging
from Hanoi over the past six months, as well as articles in Hoc 'l'ap,
and other Communist organs in Hanoi, I am convinced that Ho knows
that the road to victory in South Vietnam by overt aggression is closed.
6. He is therefore willing to shift from overt war to negotia-
tions, with the latter in no way compromising his determir..ation to
someday "unify" Vietnam. Negotiations are a weapons system at
which Ho is an expert (see his performance between the French and
the Chinats from 1946-49 or his 1949-53 moves with the French).
7. This willingness to shift gears created trouble for Lenin
and has undoubtedly created intornal difficulties for Ho. My guess
is that he released the exchange of letters to show the hard-liners
he is still tough. There is probably a "negotiate-now" faction in
Hanoi and he rhetorically disassociated himself from them.
8. But the real issue is No's authority: his capacity to
free himself lfrorn factional control and be completely "opportunist"--in
Lenin's use of the word, i. c., maintain the right to seize the utilize
any opportunity that arises.
9. Assuming that Ho has adopted a tactic of negotiation
(no Leninist looks on negotiations as valuable in themselves), but
does not think now is the time to move, the release of the exchange
of letters makes sense in terms of maintaining his freedom of
maneuver.
10. Under what circumstances can we expect him to actually
implement this tactic of negotiation?
At the worst possible time in terms of American internal unity--
say on September 1. 1968. Recall that in dealing with the French in
1953. No waited until France was in a state of almost total political
chaos over the European Defense Community to float his offer to
negotiate.
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11. What this comes down to is a rejection of the newspaper
view that Hanoi is full of parochial primitives who do not "understand
the United States. it ' .
Let us rather assume:
1) That they know exactly what they are doing;
2) That they are now out to win a negotiation;
3) That they recall both Panmunjom and two Genevan;
4) That they believe their maximum retrieval can be
accomplished when the American people are really hurting and
have a chance to bring real pressure directly on the presidential
election;
5) That their prevent "insane" military operations are desi;;ned
not to "win" tho war, or to out I Corp* off from the rest of Vietnam,
but simply to kill more Americans at whatever cost in North Vietnamese.
To a dedicated old Bolshevik a weekly headline in the Times "U.S. Deaths
Reach New All Time High" is worth 5, 000 dead peasants from the PAVN.
6) That, in short, Ho is not counting on the peaceniks but on
the isolationists in the United States and believes (correctly) that
coffins are more significant propaganda than leaflets. And he also
believes that we will not invade, really destroy, or try to liberate
the DRY, so he can outwait us in his political sanctuary.
12. This is getting too long, and it may be fantasy. but I
think we have to be prepared for such a contingency. In practice,
it is not enough to have Governor Harriman ready to sit down
anywhere, any time. The key question is "What is he going to say?"
Suppose, sometime next year, Ho surfaces with a "Laotian solution"?
(Recent captured documents hint at this possibility--see Tab B.) Are
we prepared to go for the principle of tripartite rule in SVN? Tripart-
ism was a phony in Laos from the moment the 1962 agreement was
signed, but it covered a de facto military partition which we and the
Communists were prepared to live with.
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When we say, therefore,that we are willing to go back to the 1962
,Geneva agreement. we mean neutralization under great power
guarantees, a stabilization.
But suppose Ho says, in the middle of a presidential campaign:
"Pine, let's apply the 1962 Geneva principle to South. Vitnam. "
The pressure to accept would be enormous,- but acceptance would
mean "coalition government" in Saigon, legitimation of the NLF, and
break the back of our moral/military commitment.
Which, finally, accounts for the Saigon reaction to Ambassador
Bunker. The South Vietnamese leaders are no dumber than those
in Hanoi and they have good memories. They have seen.the gallows
(to paraphrase Dr. Johnson) and it has most wonderfully clarified
their thou; ht.
If you put yourself in Ky'.e shoes, and listened to some of your
aclktPQrQ relate ,n?.attcrs of recent ht tory In i sial llij\+orth $urskcr
could easily be Seca as the man who Implemented Bobby Kennedy's
policy of "appeasements" of Sukarno.
You would then probably ask the question: "Bobby 'Kennedy has come
out for 'coalition,' Harriman vas the architect of Laos, 1962. where
does Bunker stand?",
And you might well lie awake nights worrying about the "inscrutable
Americans. "
John P. Roche
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