Word: north
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...really serious, statesmen and diplomats the world over passed the word that a breakthrough was at hand. Thailand's Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman, long a hard-liner about the war in nearby South Viet Nam, returned from a visit to Washington to announce that the U.S. and North Viet Nam had entered the "final stages" of bargaining for a bombing pause, predicted results in the "not too distant fu ture." In Paris, an official of an allied country with troops in the South said flatly: "Everything is settled." The White House was far more cautious. But when rumors began...
...Communists' Tet offensive. Johnson rejected the request, though he did agree to a modest increase, and the ceiling on U.S. manpower now stands at 549,000. Then came Johnson's March 31 renunciation of a second term and his declaration of a partial bombing pause over the North. Six weeks after that, in mid-May, the Paris peace talks began...
...North Vietnamese did not reject Johnson's message out of hand. Instead, Politburo Member Le Due Tho, officially described as an "adviser" at the peace talks but actually Hanoi's principal overseer, hurried home via Moscow, where he conferred with Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin. Once he reached Hanoi, he found himself embroiled in a bitter debate between North Viet Nam's pro-Chinese and pro-Soviet factions. One or more messages were apparently sent seeking more information. The Administration noted simply that no "breakthrough" response had come from Hanoi. Some U.S. officials feared that the North Vietnamese...
...Joint Chiefs Wheeler, Nitze, and several others who meet regularly in Under Secretary of State Nicholas deB. Katzenbach's office; and the Eleven O'Clock Group, mostly lower-level officials assigned to draft the policymakers' decisions. Among all these officials, few supported the bombing of the North up to the end. The swing man, inclined first one way, then the other, was Lyndon B. Johnson...
Declining Curve. Despite the agonizing uncertainty in Washington and Saigon about the wisdom of a bombing pause, one element worked relentlessly in its favor: the military, political and economic situation in the North...