I received Ho Chi Minh’s reply on Aug. 30, three days before his death. It simply reiterated the public position North Vietnam had taken at Paris and flatly rejected my initiative. The full text of both letters is being released to the press.
In addition to the public meetings that I’ve referred to, Ambassador Lodge has met with Vietnam’s chief negotiator in Paris in 11 private sessions.
And we have taken other significant initiatives which must remain secret to keep open some channels of communications which may still prove to be productive.
But the effect of all the public, private and secret negotiations which have been undertaken since the bombing halt a year ago, and since this Administration came into office on Jan. 20, can be summed up in one sentence: No progress whatever has been made except agreement on the shape of the bargaining table.
Well, now, who’s at fault? It’s becoming clear that the obstacle in negotiating an end to the war is not the President of the United States. It is not the South Vietnamese Government. The obstacle is the other side’s absolute refusal to show the least willingness to join us in seeking a just peace.
And it will not do so while it is convinced that all it has to do is to wait for our next concession, and our next concession after that one, until it gets everything it wants.
There can now be no longer any question that progress in negotiation depends only on Hanoi ’s deciding to negotiate -- to negotiate seriously.
I realize that this report on our efforts on the diplomatic front is discouraging to the American people, but the American people are entitled to know the truth -- the bad news as well as the good news -- where the lives of our young men are involved.
Now let me turn, however, to a more encouraging report on another front. At the time we launched our search for peace, I recognized we might not succeed in bringing an end to the war through negotiations. I therefore put into effect another plan to bring peace -- a plan which will bring the war to an end regardless of what happens on the negotiating front.
It is in line with the major shift in U. S. foreign policy which I described in my press conference at Guam on July 25.
Let me briefly explain what has been described as the Nixon Doctrine -- a policy which not only will help end the war in Vietnam but which is an essential element of our program to prevent future Vietnams.
We Americans are a do-it-yourself people -- we’re an impatient people. Instead of teaching someone else to do a job, we like to do it ourselves. And this trait has been carried over into our foreign policy.
In Korea, and again in Vietnam, the United States furnished most of the money, most of the armament and most of the men to help the people of those countries defend their freedom against Communist aggressions.
Before any American troops were committed to Vietnam, a leader of another Asian country expressed this opinion to me when I was traveling in Asia as a private citizen.
He said: “When you are trying to assist another nation defend its freedom, United States policy should be to help them fight the war, but not to fight the war for them.”
Well in accordance with this wise counsel, I laid down in Guam three principles of guidelines for future American policy toward Asia .
First, the United States will deep all of its treaty commitments.
Second, we shall provide a shield if a nuclear power threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us, or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security.
Third, in cases involving other types of aggression we shall furnish military and economic assistance when requested in accordance with our treaty commitments. But we shall look to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for its defense.
After I announced this policy, I found that the leaders of the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea and other nations which might be threatened by Communist aggression, welcomed this new direction in American foreign policy.
The defense of freedom is everybody’s business -- not just America’s business. And it is particularly the responsibility of the people whose freedom is threatened. In the previous Administration, we Americanized the war in Vietnam. In this Administration, we are Vietnamizing the search for peace.
The policy of the previous Administration not only resulted in our assuming the primary responsibility for fighting the war, but even more significant did not adequately stress the goal of strengthening the South Vietnamese so that they could defend themselves when we left.
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