Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with William H. (William Healy) Sullivan, 1981

One friend asked yourself what you should know. This is not right. With you. My first inkling of the secret talks. Came from conversations that I had quite regularly in a secure telephone circuit with Phil how B who was. The head of the acting head of our delegation in Paris that was meeting with the Vietnamese. He and I comparing notes on various things that were occurring. Came to the conclusion that there must be some secret talks taking place elsewhere which we were not aware.

Our general attitude was one of relief because our own talk said frustrated so. Badly and had reached a dead end where we're getting nowhere. So we didn't really have all that much concern for turf we were more concerned with the substance on the hope that these talks. Wherever they might be would indicate some progress. Our conclusion just from the way in which things were evolving at that time was that they were being carried on by Henry kissing him. I didn't really get brought into the fact of the talks I was ever until some time in the late summer of 1972. I. Do want to raise you. We will see. You as you will. Well there were several formulae that were proposed. For the

military consequences of. A. Cease fire and a an agreement. One of the favored ones that was discussed at many times was the so-called weapons bought formula in which there would be forces. That were not. Under the control of the government. That is to say communist forces that were allowed to stay in certain enclaves and certain delimited territories of South Vietnam. This is something that had been discussed on and off several times. I had discussed it with you on several occasions during my visits to Saigon. He was fascinated by. What went on in Italy where for example was a communist town but existed almost autonomously in a countryside that was obviously under the control of a Christian Democratic National. Government. And he

kept asking me since I've been in Italy how this function then tried to probe into the possibility of achieving the same sort of thing in Vietnam. I think that he found it hard to accept. A promise of Northern troops in the south in quite such a bold involved terms but to talk in terms of a cease fire in place. With the obvious tacit acknowledgement that some of these forces were on the bulk of them were Northern something that he was able intellectually at least to stride. You. Know leads him to this he would be to do ministry which

would enable us. To get one of the comments about this is this you know the question being raised by you know. While it was clear that the North Vietnamese considered the American elections to be a very important date. And a date that they could exploit. And they felt that by pressing for an agreement prior to those elections. That they could. Bring. Something of value to the administration in a way that the administration would find tempting and therefore they assume that. They could probably improve the quality of what they would achieve from the negotiations if they made the effort to have them concluded prior to the end of October. Do you do

you know that yet. When we came to Saigon with the outline of an agreement. Already in hand the famous pieces that hand outline. And presented it for the first time to Hugh and to his associates in the series of meetings that took place there largely at the presidential palace. The. First reaction of two to the plan that we proposed to him was rather calm he seemed to grasp of the essence of it particularly the fact that his government could remain intact. That the so-called administrative structure that was going to be established would be a structure that would not supersede his authority and that we would in effect be reverting to something

of the leopard's spots arrangement that had been talked about. The second day however after having read these in more detail he came back presumably after having consulted with his colleagues. He came back quite rigidly opposed meetings got quite emotional. Then in the middle of all this dong the prime minister of North Vietnam gave an interview to the correspondent for Newsweek. Which confirmed Jews worst fears and suspicions because dong insisted that the administrative structure was going to be a superstructure that would indeed subordinate government and his regime to a tripartite organisation. This presumably represented some. Parallax that existed in Hanoi as well because I think Les that had a quite clear idea of what he was accepting and

pond Dong was still on the wicket of the previous proposals that had been put forward from the noise. So the combination of emotional resistance to the draft that we put forward plus the. Gaffe and I think it was a gaffe rather than a deliberate sabotage by a pond on Dong threw the whole thing off the trucks. This is the. Release. This is. The state has. To do with the statement by them that. When it was designed by

the time you well the original plan of costs had been for. Our mission to Saigon to gain acceptance of the. Proposal in the draft that we had worked out with the Vietnamese but with the North Vietnamese. We were then to go from. Saigon up to one and put some finishing touches on this. And presumably have an agreed understanding prior to the October 26. That moment when the North Vietnamese made all this public. When the North Vietnamese made it public in a statement from Noyon. It arrived in Washington in the middle of the night. In fact I recall. That I had a son who was studying on the West Coast. Calling me up at what was about 2 a.m. Washington time and telling me what had been said and

expressing great. Joy and congratulations on what had been achieved. Thereafter we then went into. Telephone consultations in Washington and those of us who were involved. To try to find out what our reaction should be we obviously couldn't just pass it by in silence and so they had to be something in the nature of a press. Conference the next day. We met that. Morning whatever that morning was. And. Talk in terms of what would be said. It was obviously necessary to confirm that we had been having these negotiations that they had arrived at a certain. Element of understanding and that we were close to an agreement. We still at that stage felt that we could clear up the anomalies that had resulted from statement and that we could satisfy two

problems and to bring the whole thing into fruition. So rather than pouring cold water over the. Statement from Hanoi it was necessary to confirm the essence of it without getting into detail and that's what produced the. Press conference. The. Most renowned statement of which was Henry kissing a statement that pieces and. You know that he beat her. This is just humans. Who's going to be. When you lose you. But I think those two. Trends that I suggested

began to manifest themselves in far more concrete terms. First of all two became very much concerned about the impact of all these provisions upon his ability to continue to govern in South Vietnam and to have a legitimate government which would nevertheless accept a leopard spot formula throughout the country and in the north led up to us seem to be having some trouble with his hard nosed people who wanted the administrative structure of formula to be somewhat more meaningful in terms of its political implications so that the two extreme groups dug themselves in and those of us who were trying to plot up the middle found that we just want able to bring them back together again. I think also after the elections the North Vietnamese came to the conclusion that a congressional alignment

had been produced which would through acts of the Congress bring the executive branch to heel and therefore they felt that once the election had taken place they had only to wait until January when this Congress would come in and the actions of the Congress would tie the hands of the executive branch. So I believe the North Vietnamese is once the election deadline had passed. Recognize that they had an opportunity that they wished to exploit to bring pressure on the branch in the United States. Well this is the record. Jane good to know. Yes I recall being at that meeting.

The changes were great many of them. Actually. Pick the U.N. They didn't really have much in substance that was required to change. But the very fact that they were. So petty and did introduce an element of nit picking into the discussions. Annoyed. The North Vietnamese. The substantive changes that were suggested were not all that many but two or three of them were quite real and quite significant. The North Vietnamese delegation was inclined to be a little surly anyway and I think this just accelerated the. Process of deterioration in the talks. Just sign the release. You do.

This the very long time that you went through is what in that period of late November the North Vietnamese engaged in a number of dilatory tactics. One of them was as you suggest the question of tying the release of prisoners of war to the release of civilians in the south. But there were others all of which generally run neg down arrangements that they had previously made and which were significant to the text and to the integrity of the document we had negotiated. It was clear that they were doing two things one that they were retaliating for the changes which the South Vietnamese had asked to be put in the text. But more particularly that they were deliberately attempting to stall and avoid reaching any

conclusions until that new Congress could come into session and could enact the sorts of inhibitions that they anticipated. So we went through the period of late November and into early December. In total frustration on our side of the table. On their side of the table almost a light hearted. Attitude which indicated that they were toying with us. We told them several times both across the table and then in private conversations where kissing would take laid out to a side and I would take men Kotok aside that the understandings on which bombing of the North had been suspended. Were premised on a continuation of serious constructive negotiations that we detected in their attitude and a withdrawal from that promise.

And indeed the introduction of tactics which we could only regard as being dilatory. We warned them that if. That indeed were the case that our president would resume bombing of the north. They seemed not to believe the nature of this threat. They seemed to believe that the president would be inhibited from the bombing because the electoral trend in the United States had brought in a Congress that was going to oppose bombing him because the general. Attitude as demonstrated in public opinion polls in the United States was opposed to resumption of the bombing. So they had almost a cavalier attitude to this and felt that they could get away with a. Sabotage of the talks with impunity. In due course. Good singer and I finally talked on many occasions about this and finally he reported

to the president our conclusion that. There were not serious talks going on the talks had ceased to be progressive constructive and serious. And this of course lead immediately thought the decision to resume bombing. Well the first meeting after the Christmas bombing was I believe on January 2. I remember coming back on New Year's Day the senior members of the Vietnamese delegation had been backing one noid during the bombing. In fact I was informed by and could talk that. One string of bombs had fallen very close to lead up to US House. So they had absolved the full impact of this bombing. And they were aware that it was a serious

effort. We were also aware and I'm sure they were that they had run out of anti aircraft missiles that the Chinese were not permitting additional ones through that they would soon be quite naked to bombing. And all the bombing was never truly carpet bombing as it has often been depicted because it was very accurate bombing against specific installations. They nevertheless feared the wrath of this and knew that they were in a position where a continuing or a resumption of the bombing would cause serious problems for them. So they were very much on edge and in that first meeting which we had which was in a house to belong to the French Communist Party out in one of the. Working class suburbs of Paris to the south. It was a very somber meeting no jollity no joking as you

went on. And one of the points were pressed and we seem to be at a point of suggesting that our patients was running thin. They either made a concession there or move rapidly on to something else and set that aside. In that first meeting. We got through in textual terms about twice as much as we had achieved in two weeks of the last two weeks of November. The previous year so. That was quite clear evidence in that meeting and the subsequent one or two that the Vietnamese wished to resume the negotiating track. And wish to come back to achieving some sort of semblance of the agreement that we had reached. In. The late summer early fall. Agreement on this. It's time to use the green

ones. No major significant changes in the thrust of the basic document of the agreement. Of cos we had fleshed it out with a whole series of protocols that had to do with the return of prisoners of war speaking of mind control commissions arrangements for the introduction of personnel and and equipment through certain checkpoints etc. etc.. But as far as the substance of the agreement was concerned not that much difference from what we had in October of seventy two. Do you really think that this is this is good.

OK it was good. This is usually about the will of the. So you would hear or read. I will change my color. Who asked the question was. This sound. Was remote regions. Well before the fact of the negotiations had become public transportation entailed a trip in one of the special presidential national mission aircraft to a landing field military landing field in the middle of France a French feel where the passengers in the plane

would bark at the end of a runway in the middle of the night and then get aboard the French presidents little me stair jet which was I think a 12 passenger plane fly into a smaller field close to Paris where we'd be met by the people from the embassy who were privy to the negotiations in the first instance it was Dick Walters who was the military attache and then succeeded by the air attache. Who drove us into town in these small. Rental Car unmarked vehicles and came through a back entrance into the residence of the American ambassador at the old Ross field mansion near the shell's eighties. There were some anecdotes one evening one night one of our

participants taking the baggage off the plane setting it down the middle of the runway and getting aboard the mistery jet. Left one of his bags behind sitting there in the middle of the runway and I imagine when the French Air Force used that runway in the morning they must have been rather confused to find a suitcase sitting in the middle of the runway. You asked also about this. The walk in the garden. The decision to inform the president that our assessment that the North Vietnamese had ceased to negotiate seriously was one that we did not take lightly. I think we discussed it for a matter of several days but I think perhaps the most intense discussion we had was one afternoon I believe it was a Sunday afternoon rather a damp foggy day in which Henry Kissinger and I walked around a circular track in the garden of the ambassador's residence

for at least two hours discussing all the implications of this. The evidence that we had and whether or not we. I. Really felt that we could refrain any longer from involving the president our conclusion that the talks had come to a dead end as far as any substance was concerned. We finally came to the conclusion that it was our obligation to inform the president that those talks had ceased to have substance and progress. We knew full well both of us from the president's expressed attitude that this meant that he was going to resume bombing. We knew the consequences of that and what would be said not only domestically in the United States but internationally. We felt there was no alternative however but to be candid and forthright with the president who was who was the model for this is the line.

Underlying the Geneva Accord Accords of 1962 on Laos was a. Territorial. Promise. The in fact we called it the red white and blue plan. The red as the communists basically the North Vietnamese forces abetted by a few potted Lao controlled the north eastern sector of the country. The blue that is to say the ones who are more closely associated with Thailand then who are royalist. Or princely at least control the southern portion of the country up to and along the tire from here. The whites the neutralised control the plane and up to and including the long. So that we had a territorial division of the country that was.

Underlying the nature of the agreements to be worked out. Each one of these factions of course was headed by a different prince. You will recall the three princes of Laos and there were personalities that were involved. In Vietnam it was quite the opposite. There was really no true structure of the so-called Viet Cong. The true opposition in Vietnam was a loud party the Politburo operating out of annoyed the people who acted as the nominal heads of the Vietcong were figments of. So. There was no fundamental premise that was similar to the one in Laos. Consequently the position and there was no geographical division that was similar. Consequently the division that was worked out not only of.

Territory but also of authority in Laos really didn't have a counterpart in South Vietnam. You look cool. Well the Lao agreements. Had hardly been signed and hardly been put into effect in 1962 before the North Vietnamese began to break them. In fact they never withdrew their forces from Laos as had been required by those agreements. They enhanced and expanded the trail and they maintained an attitude of some provocation with respect to the enchanting government as well as the other forces in Laos. Eventually they.

Assassinated one of the young military officers who was fairly senior in the neutralised command. This in turn resulted in the execution or the assassination of the foreign minister who had close links with baking rather than with and in general the. Substance of the agreements began to break down our choices the United States at that stage was either to declare that the agreements were no longer valid and revert to a confrontation which presumably would result in the reintroduction of United States military forces into Thailand and all the other elements of the confrontation that existed prior to the agreements. Or else. Attempting to maintain the facade of the agreements. But to shore up the. Neutralise government and to try to really resolve the basic

issue in the territory of Vietnam rather than in Laos Laos after all was really ancillary to Vietnam. The main thrust of the North Vietnamese allowed party was to take over. Vietnam. First all of Vietnam and then only after that to expand over into Laos and Cambodia. They were using Lao territory primarily as a transit point to South Vietnam and that was the principal preoccupation of annoyed. So rather than reestablishing the confrontation over Lee in Laos the decision was made in 1963 and early 1964. To re-establish. Some logistic support to the Mayo tribes people up in the hills of the northeastern quadrant of Laos in order to. Slow down the advance of the Vietnamese across Lao territory and in order to bring

that measure into some. Control. It was decided to do this clandestinely rather than overtly because by doing it clandestinely we could still maintain the presumption that the Lao agreements were intact. And if and when a settlement was reached in Vietnam then we could revert back to the status quo of having an agreement that was did not require renegotiation and which. Basically accepted a a buffer arrangement for Laos. Well Savannah Puma was an interesting though is an interesting mixture of a man. He was born of costs to. Royalty in Laos. The cadet branch of the Lao royal family.

But he was educated in France and acquired. A French culture to such a degree that he was more or less a French country gentleman on the way in which he lived in the way in which he. Enjoyed his own pleasures. So Ivana. Also was a fairly sophisticated man will be a man. And found himself quite. Out of touch with a great many of the more. Earthy aspects of his Laotian counterparts. He. Behaved as a European many many instances in that. Southeast Asian context. As an. Have you lost something there. We will carry on. You get the last picture so good you'll

get it. Oh I see. Oh well. He was also a curious mixture of royal impatience and lengthy patients with some of the features of the Lao confusion as an operator I would say that he was someone who was able to deal from a princely point of view with his subordinates never really getting down into the details trusting them to carry out the details therefore needing to have with him and around him some people who were technically competent and who were able to generally execute the sorts of things that he had in mind. He had a pretty shrewd understanding of the balance which

could be tolerated among the larger powers. And it was effective I think in maintaining his reputation his integrity and his xcept ability in the major capitals of the world. Right. Yes. Yes.