Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume VII, Vietnam, September 1968–January 1969

176. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam¹

Washington, November 1, 1968, 2314Z.

265600. 1. Bui Diem asked to see Bundy this afternoon our time. He had no instructions, and no information other than the fact he himself was making no comment whatever to newsmen, and was letting the GVN statements in Saigon speak for themselves. (Press evidence is that he was telling the truth.)

2. Bundy took the occasion to run over the story of events during the day and night of Thursday,² and the basic problems that had prevented final agreement on a joint announcement. Bundy said that President Thieu’s insistence that the judgment on de-escalation be that of President Johnson alone would not have caused significant difficulty here, provided it had been stated in the form of “good reason to believe.” However, we had not been able to agree to language that would have suggested that we did not have a firm date in mind for the Paris meetings, or that might have been taken to indicate that major “procedural” problems remained to be resolved.

3. Bui Diem and Bundy agreed that the problem now was not the past, but what position the GVN would take toward the Paris talks. Bundy noted that preliminary talks on procedure might begin at any time in Paris between us and the North Vietnamese. He then said that, in terms of Thieu’s speech tomorrow morning in Saigon,³ and of other GVN actions, there were three fundamental points with which the speech and actions must be consistent and affirmative:

a. That the GVN would in fact participate in the Paris meetings as set up.

b. That the meetings should convene on November 6 or at most a day or so after.

c. That, while we could of course work very closely together with the GVN on genuinely procedural problems such as number and type of seats, name plates, etc., we could not expect to delay the first Paris meeting, or dig ourselves in, on any proposition that in effect reopened the whole understanding on participation. This related particularly to any effort to get Hanoi to say expressly that it would talk to the GVN, or that the NLF were simply members of the DRV delegation. It was hopeless to expect acceptance of either of these two points, and the US Government could not delay the meeting on their account.

4. Summing up, Bundy said that Bui Diem was free to report these three points to Saigon as Bundy statements, based on the central judgment that American public sympathy for the GVN would be sharply eroded if the GVN failed to cooperate along these essentially agreed lines. Bundy also suggested that Bui Diem might wish to add his own judgment of the effect on public opinion of GVN failure to act in this way, and Bui Diem pretty clearly implied that he agreed with what Bundy had said.

Rusk

1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, A/IM Files: Lot 93 D 82, HARVAN-(Outgoing)-November 1968. Secret; Immediate; Nodis/HARVAN Double Plus. Drafted and approved by Bundy and cleared by Read. Repeated to Paris for Harriman and Vance as Todel 1452.
2. October 31.
3. See footnote 4, Document 178.