Keeping the Secret

WHEN the bombing-halt negotiations neared the final stage, Washington officials categorically refused to give interviews and, in some cases, even to take phone calls. For that matter, all but a select few had no firsthand knowledge of the frenetic, hyper-secret maneuverings. Said one participant: "Fewer men are fully clued into these contacts than were involved in the Cuba missile crisis."

When the peace talks began in May, the State Department established a separate communications channel with Paris and drew up the nation's most exclusive readership list. Once the final phase began about a month ago, Lyndon Johnson emphasized to Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Defense Secretary Clark Clifford that it was "a period of the utmost sensitivity," specifically instructed them to remain silent about developments. At that point, the minuscule distribution list for cable traffic from Paris and Saigon was trimmed even further. At the end, the club that had access to the cables included only five men in Foggy Bottom: Rusk and Benjamin Reed, Executive Secretary of the State Department; William Bundy, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and his aide, Hay ward Isham; and Under Secretary of State Nicholas deB. Katzenbach. Not even these precautions were considered entirely reliable when particularly touchy issues were involved. At such times, scrambler telephones and even couriers were used in preference to cables.

The precautions worked. It was not until the President had to inform U.S. allies of his impending decision that the rumors started to flow. Then the expectation of a bombing halt was frontpage news around the world. factories are operated by women. Monsoon rains and flooding made rice so scarce that prices soared to as much as ten times the official rate. At the same time that the North's military capability has skidded into a downward curve, the South's is on the upswing. According to a Pentagon study conducted by Assistant Secretary of Defense Dr. Alain Enthoven, South Viet Nam's armed forces along with its Regional and Popular Forces have improved enough in the past two years to equal the introduction of 190,000 more U.S. fighting men.

Decisive Element. The ultimate decision was obviously up to Lyndon Johnson, who has never stopped trying to extract from Hanoi the assurances of the mutual de-escalation that he had al ways demanded. Given China's heavy pressure on North Viet Nam not to make any overt agreement with the U.S., it seemed doubtful that such assurances would be forthcoming. Hanoi might also have reasoned that the closer the U.S. election drew, the more willing Johnson would be to give ground. On the other hand, the North Vietnamese might prefer to deal with L.B.J. --a known, if occasionally inscrutable, quantity--than with a new President who might take six months or so to get things moving.

Hence Johnson's dilemma: a pause would become possible only if he were to go ahead on the basis of what he once considered insufficient evidence of a favorable response--namely, the fighting lull and veiled assurances from Hanoi's agents that the U.S. was not being lured into a trap.

Some Administration officials argued that Johnson should have declared a unilateral pause in the first place. According to their reasoning, by linking a pause to protracted negotiations with Hanoi, L.B.J. was making it that much more difficult for the U.S. to resume the bombing, should such a step later become necessary. Had he gone ahead and grounded the bombers on his own, then the possibility of a resumption of air attacks could have been held more convincingly as a Damoclean threat over Hanoi.

Even with a pause, the war will be far from finished. During negotiations to end the Indo-China War in 1954, the Vietnamese Communists proved their skill at "fighting while talking." They must be expected to do so once more. But the bombing halt, the President suggested, is an acceptable risk. While it may cost some allied lives--and General Abrams does not consider this a serious threat--it is also possible that the peace negotiations may now move toward a sensible resolution. (A likely first step would be a cease-fire before year's end.) If that should indeed be the result, ending the anguish and self-doubt that have afflicted American society as a result of the conflict, the gamble is one that the U.S. should be eager to underwrite.

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