longsword14
Banned
You have been on this site for some time. you must have seen DavidT repeatedly post his comment disproving the whole sabotage angle.
Nixon couldn't sabotage peace talks because the signatory, SV, did not want 'peace' in '68.
I will copy it here :
I think William Bundy in *A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency* summarizes it best:
"What was the effect of Thieu's decision on the election? How much was that decision influenced by Nixon's agents and by Republicans generally? Did the delay in getting into serious negotiations affect, even destroy, a real chance for peace?
"The first question is easy. There can be little doubt that a joint October 31 announcement that included Thieu's participation would have had a powerful effect on the American voting public, which would have lasted through the election. The plan Thieu endorsed on October 13 called for this, and had Thieu done the things he promised, the effect would surely have been decisive in favor of Humphrey. Thieu's pulling back in those last days was crucial to Nixon's victory.
"But did Thieu act as he did because of Nixon's urging (via Chennault and the various Republican senators talking to Bui Diem), or would he have taken the same course without that urging? On this key question, any judgment must be tentative. While those who have adopted the latter conclusion have not known how much Nixon actually did, their arguments are respectable. First, as we have noted, the mere idea of getting into negotiations was always suspect in Saigon, and the reality that the NLF would also be present at the table (a reality drummed in by their prompt appearance in Paris in the last week of October, with press conferences and maximum fanfare) raised fears of a coalition government emerging even though the United States disavowed this time and again.98 Second, in South Vietnamese political circles the preference for Nixon over Humphrey was strong and deep-seated. Eleven members of the South Vietnamese Senate went so far on November 2 as to issue a statement endorsing Nixon.
"Ambassador Bunker in Saigon, the American in the best position to appraise Thieu, gave this retrospective analysis in January 1969, after emotions had cooled: The idea of sitting down [in Paris] with the NLF in international negotiations has all along been very troublesome to Thieu and his colleagues. To their mind it gives a degree of recognition and respectability to a tool of Hanoi, and raises the specter of its inclusion in a future government ... . Thieu's recoil from [including the NLF] at the moment of truth in October sprang from these basic factors: his inability adequately to prepare public opinion; his normal reluctance to bite the bullet; and his hope that with a new U.S. administration coming in he could postpone or perhaps evade entirely the bombing halt and the confrontation with the NLF it implied. Bunker thought that American insistence on Thieu's keeping things to a very narrow group did not give him enough time to persuade important political figures in Saigon. Given the need on the American side to preserve security during the crucial mid-October period (to confirm the deal with Hanoi), "delay was inevitable" at the Saigon end.99 This is an analysis with which I would have agreed at the time, before the evidence of the Chennault and Bui Diem memoirs showed how strongly the Nixon-established "Republican position" was pressed on Thieu and others. Bunker knew onlygenerally of this pressure and thus, I believe, underestimated its importance. 100
"Moreover, there is good evidence that Thieu had a degree of personal animosity toward Humphrey, based apparently on a talk between the two at the end of Humphrey's visit to South Vietnam for Thieu's inauguration in October 1967. When Humphrey said that Thieu should start to think about a transition to self-reliance and a reduced American role, Thieu replied that U.S. forces would have to remain in South Vietnam indefinitely at their strength at that time, which was already over 500,000, whereupon Humphrey commented that retention of the full American military presence was "not in the cards." Thieu took this very badly.101 It is certainly plausible that when Thieu saw Humphrey's election suddenly as likely, this personal animosity and concern affected his actions. On the other hand, if he had not been told that he would have Nixon's support in holding back, he would surely have had to give greater weight to what refusing to go along could do to his chances of full support from any American President. He was, in effect, assured that the top Republicans would soften any immediate criticism of him, and would themselves hold him in greater favor for holding back. In sum, a historical jury trying to decide whether Nixon's Chennault operation actually carried the day in Saigon and led Thieu to act as he did would, I believe, conclude that Nixon intended that result and did all he could to produce it. Yet there is no way to prove beyond doubt that the operation was decisive in Saigon.
"Was a chance for peace lost? Here again one must be tentative. If North Vietnam was as hard pressed as Johnson's advisors believed and said at the decisive meeting of October 14, then immediate and serious peace negotiations might have produced useful concessions. Yet, as Dean Rusk then pointed out, complete negotiations would have taken months, and Hanoi might have reverted to a very hard line. My conclusion is that probably no great chance was lost. Yet from a moral and political standpoint, Nixon's actions must be judged harshly. Certainly, if the full extent of those actions had become known then -- or indeed at any point during his presidency--his moral authority would have been greatly damaged and the antiwar movement substantially strengthened. At the practical level, Nixon (and, soon, Kissinger) must have learned from the experience that South Vietnam could not be made a full party to serious negotiations. Even formal concurrence by Thieu in a negotiating position did not prevent him from pulling back when he chose..."
https://library.villanova.edu/Find/Record/477912/Excerpt
