Was There a Viable “Third Force” in the Vietnam War?

Sophie Quinn-Judge, The Third Force in the Vietnam War: The Elusive Search for Peace, 1954–75. London: I. B. Tauris, 2017. 336 pp. 110. 00. Sophie Quinn-Judge makes an original and valuable contribution to Vietnam War scholarship by excavating the nearly forgotten—and largely unnoticed at the time—story of Vietnamese, mostly in the South, who waged a forlorn and ultimately doomed struggle to forge a “third way” between the Communism promoted by Hanoi and the anti-Communism of successive U. S. -backed governments in Saigon. Recounting these efforts, from the 1954 Geneva Conference that divided the country (supposedly temporarily, pending national elections two years later) until the North's final conquest of the South in 1975, Quinn-Judge believes there was a lamentably-neglected alternative historical path that would have been far preferable to the tragically bloody road actually followed—a road that was damaging for everyone involved. Somewhat less convincingly, she contends that authentic opportunities existed for such “third force” formulas to bear fruit, although the odds appear no shorter in retrospect than they did at the time given the opposing actors’ incompatible aims. To rescue from oblivion this melancholy tale of frustrated hopes and ambitions, an essentially unproductive yet conceptually important sideshow, Quinn-Judge transcends the linguistic, and thus evidentiary, limitations that have hampered most prior English-language accounts. When Washington massively escalated its military involvement in Vietnam in the mid-1960s, it not only “Americanized” the war, dominating strategy and decision-making and flooding Saigon and much of South Vietnam with soldiers, advisers, equipment, products, contractors, funds, and more, it also prospectively “Americanized” the war's history. In the years since then, standard accounts have been dominated by a Washington-centric narrative, based on U. S. archives and English-language sources. The end of the Cold War and release of some Communist sources yielded fine studies of Moscow's and Beijing's ties with North Vietnam and approaches to the conflict, but secrets have been far slower to emerge from Hanoi's archives, access to which remains tightly circumscribed. 1Quinn-Judge's first book, a study of Ho Chi Minh's early career published in 2003, relied heavily on Russian and French archival sources. At the time, few Vietnamese records were available on the revolutionary patriarch's rise (before he was even known as Ho Chi Minh). 2 By contrast, The Third Force, while exploiting French and other non-U. S. materials, most extensively uses Vietnamese sources, both archival and secondary, cementing Quinn-Judge's place in the unfortunately still small coterie of scholars (such as Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Pierre Asselin, David W. P. Elliott, William J. Duiker, Robert K. Brigham, Mark Philip Bradley, Christopher Goscha, Ang Cheng Guan, and the master translator Merle L. Pribbenow) who have enhanced our understanding of the war through their fluency in Vietnamese-language sources. 3Most of these studies focus on the Communist side, painstakingly trying, with fragmentary evidence and mixed results, to decipher decision-making in Hanoi. 4 As for politics in Saigon, there has burst a surge of interest in the reign of Ngo Dinh Diem (1954–1963), exploiting the comparatively open archives in Ho Chi Minh City—relative to those in Hanoi, that is. 5 However, far less attention has been given to exploiting available records on the post-Diem Saigon governments that dealt with U. S. officials and military commanders at the height of the war. Although South Vietnam (1954–1975) was often written off as a lackey of its superpower patron, there have long been signs of considerable tension in the Washington-Saigon relationship—for example, the exchanges surrounding the 1968 and 1972 U. S. presidential elections and preceding the January 1973 Paris “peace” accords—and hints of concealed South Vietnamese maneuvering, especially regarding independent interactions with third parties. 6The “third force” (or “Third Segment, ” as it later became known) Quinn-Judge describes was not monolithic; it took various forms at different junctures. The stories unfold chronologically, from obscure post-Geneva efforts in 1954–1956 to explore a neutralist path or salvage national elections (pp. 34–42), to some vain but valiant last-ditch peace bids in the final years of the doomed Saigon regime, which Quinn-Judge and her husband witnessed in situ in 1973–1975; they were even scarily captured and held for two weeks by “young NLF guerrillas” (pp. 165–166). Much of the dissent called for fealty to key aspects of the 1954 Geneva accords, from holding national elections to unify the country or—after that objective was effectively abandoned after 1956—urging a neutralist path for (at least South) Vietnam and transforming the Saigon administration from a military-run junta to a coalition government that would include some opposition elements, including members of the Marxist-Leninist National Liberation Front (a group Hanoi created in 1960 under the DRV's control, though the relationship was not publicly acknowledged). These calls for political alternatives often commingled with appeals for democratic reforms, including calls for open elections (rather than the rigged sort preferred by Saigon officials), a free press, rights to protest, and more (including a “social revolution” at one point). Alas, as Quinn-Judge recounts, the earnest activists who promoted these aims were repeatedly marginalized—or alternately deflected, humored, ignored, slandered, co-opted, intimidated, and sometimes harshly repressed. The Vietnamese Communists (in Hanoi and the NLF) and U. S. officials gave lip service to their interpretation of Geneva, and to the supposed desirability or at least (in the U. S. case7) grudging acceptance of the possibility of a neutralist outcome in the South, but neither party ever really strayed from their mutually incompatible ultimate objectives: national unification under Communist rule for Hanoi, the preservation of an anti-Communist South Vietnamese bastion for Washington. 8 During the Cold War, U. S. officials consistently disdained the idea of neutralism or coalition governments including Communist-aligned figures as risking a repetition of the Soviet-backed 1948 Communist coup in Czechoslovakia (or, at best, the distasteful specter of “Finlandization”). National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy called coalition rule in Vietnam “surrender on the installment plan. ”9 Nor did they find the 1962 Geneva pact to neutralize Laos a useful precedent for South Vietnam: doing so would be “nonsense, ” Secretary of State Dean Rusk insisted, unless the North were neutralized as well. 10 What Quinn-Judge describes as this U. S. “brush with neutralization” was faint indeed. The Laos deal merely portended a firmer stand to protect an anti-Communist South Vietnam (pp. 48–50). As for the Communists, the NLF (obviously with Hanoi's approval) kept neutralization in its platform and, in a limited way, at various points, cooperated with non-Communist South Vietnamese opponents of the regime, in a clear attempt to gain wider popular support, exploit anti-government movements (like the Buddhist revolts of 1963 and 1966), and thwart the U. S. -led war effort. Quinn-Judge gives some credence to at least some of these professions of support for a neutral, non-Communist South Vietnam and laments that they were not tested. She identifies several potential chances for progress, such as (in view of Le Duan's support for a neutralist formula in the years before U. S. military involvement spiked) a “window of opportunity” for a negotiated peaceful solution in 1963–1965 (pp. 74–77). Drawing on French archives, she also spotlights a futile yet fascinating French-promoted gambit, linked to October 1971 presidential elections in South Vietnam, to push a Geneva-inspired settlement for a “neutral and independent” state (pp. 147–154). This story adds to the far better-known calls by Charles de Gaulle in 1963 and 1966 for Vietnam's (and Southeast Asia's) neutralization and the departure of U. S. forces. 11 Yet, as Quinn-Judge acknowledges, considerable uncertainty persists about the credibility of Communist claims of support for a neutral South Vietnam, and one cannot simply reject U. S. claims that it was merely a tactic to get U. S. troops out of the way to pave the way for an eventual Communist seizure of power and national unification under Hanoi's auspices (e. g. , p. 75). Quinn-Judge mostly tracks the efforts of non-governmental Vietnamese activists, but she also usefully reexamines some well-known episodes and issues involving the Saigon and Hanoi governments, using new Vietnamese evidence. For instance, she notes tantalizing claims that Ngo Dinh Nhu's subterranean probing of a dialogue with the North, well-known from the so-called “Manelli Affair” in the autumn of 1963, encompassed overtures extending back to 1960, though she doubts any such dialogue could have yielded a “stable or long-lasting peace” (pp. 53–56). On Hanoi, she provides a fresh and important account of the DRV's delicate dual dealings with Moscow and Beijing, seeking to gain maximum aid and advantage from both Communist patrons despite the deepening Sino-Soviet rift. Her account (esp. ch. 3) is a way-station to a fuller study of Hanoi's side of this complicated story if Vietnamese Communist sources are ever opened to complement the burgeoning studies (discussed above) of Soviet and Chinese perspectives. Quinn-Judge also updates her influential 2005 journal article on the still-murky North Vietnamese “Anti-Party Affair” in 1967, when DRV Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap was edged aside, and allegedly pro-Soviet party members were ousted, in the run-up to the Tet Offensive—after which, in April 1968, Hanoi mysteriously swerved to accepting direct talks with the United States (see ch. 5), a step backed by Moscow but opposed by Beijing. 12Not being fluent in Vietnamese, I cannot really evaluate Quinn-Judge's use of sources in that language, but a few minor errors creep into her description of the U. S. side. For example, the main U. S. intelligence agency during World War II, the OSS, was the Office (not Organization) of Strategic Services (p. 29). During the 1968 U. S. presidential campaign, Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey's “poll numbers began to close in on Richard Nixon's lead” not “immediately after Lyndon B. Johnson's promise of peace” on 31 October (p. 128), but after Humphrey's nationally televised speech in Salt Lake City a month earlier, on 30 September, in which for the first time the vice president broke with Johnson's war policy, promising to stop bombing North Vietnam and calling for a cease-fire. In sum, I must endorse the verdict of the late Marilyn B. Young (on a back-cover blurb) that this is a heart-breaking story of Vietnamese who tried but failed against insuperable odds to steer their country onto a better, less violent path. Although much uncertainty still surrounds some of the questions Quinn-Judge raises—especially the plausibility of a neutral or nonaligned solution that could have avoided or limited the brutal war that grievously harmed both Vietnam and the United States and traumatized international relations—it is regrettable that, in the final analysis, neither Washington nor Hanoi took these efforts as seriously as she does in this fine book. Sophie Quinn-Judge's book is a valuable addition to the huge literature on the Vietnam War. It fills a gap, in fact two gaps, in the evolving historiography of the war. Over the past quarter century, there has been an increasing focus on South Vietnam, particularly and not surprisingly so, the Ngo Dinh Diem government. Studies of South Vietnam under Nguyen Van Thieu have also been appearing. Studies of the Communist regime in North Vietnam have been much more extensive, thanks to the end of the Cold War and the opening of Soviet-bloc archives. Even so, the power struggle within the Lao Dong Party, which certainly affected the course of the war, remains difficult to document. In this book, Quinn-Judge has skillfully interweaved the developments in South Vietnamese politics, particularly the role of those who believed in and worked toward a negotiated peace, and the balance of power in the North (chs. 3 and 5), which affected Hanoi's fluctuating attitude toward a negotiated peace during the war (p. 4). She reminds us that “we need to look at the Vietnamese and their politics as something more complex than the story of communists versus nationalists; or American puppets versus pawns of the communist bloc” and not to “view the Vietnamese, North or South, as of (p. Her account is and book with a of the “Third and “Third to the of which is essentially the “Third or “Third was As Quinn-Judge to explore this one to the of the of a “Third and a to the (p. 3) As late as “Third was to “Third The is in William The of and a of as Force a at the of the balance of a group of or an between the communist and the The “Third became less with the of Cold War Quinn-Judge that although Third and are she “Third with often (pp. her for “Third the uses “Third which was more during the Vietnam War. it is also to with Third and of the a of international published an in the late of Southeast which provides a useful of the of notes that there was much the which was often with and is of international a state the of or both in of peace and of a which is as such and by other The neutralized state and its are to other by a of rights and The between a neutralized state and a neutral state is that a state be neutralized only an international (and be only by the of the as as the neutralized a neutral state be by being or a neutral state is neutral only in and its to and not to The in neutralism is and in free from provides useful when Quinn-Judge's Her book that on the formula of coalition government and was in South Vietnam late and that negotiated peace backed by U. S. would have than the long war that the on this Quinn-Judge also that the Communists and their would have preferred a political in the years after the Geneva Conference of I not her in this She believes that the United as as and the Soviet to bear some for the of the “Third and the of the “Third (pp. On I as has the Cold officials it in that no for of The who the 1954 Geneva later that the North Vietnamese were to the and believed that been given balance by the to so as a for in to a in they could not the U. S. which did not more than it did in The that is that there is much to about cannot have a neutral South What to is to and a war in South Vietnam through Southeast cannot this is is not much opposing and they as they are simply not to be from their at least until have much which was on the for and in Vietnam the neutralization of neutralization was an if it the of Vietnam but believed that Communist would to of the South was and any with the Sino-Soviet would only the time for on Vietnam be when Diem has the against the Communists in the could on and for an by both and to the However, as Diem was in 1963, and Saigon was to the Communists in the The who were even more than the about U. S. policy, have been to (and even have and Ngo Dinh Nhu's of a deal with However, officials in by their for for the It is also they were of the of Vietnam or only of South the of the Geneva Conference on Laos in there was that it would be by an international on and North Vietnamese and Chinese officials at least It be of the Laos when they in did not that that the of Laos could be neutral at a time when a third of the country was under Communist However, he that a neutral government under was not only the but also the only to that Laos did not into Communist However, this he would support from the of the free would have to Vietnam as late with Van Dong and Ho Chi Minh in to Van North Vietnam was to but the was not for talks government no to neutral government that Diem would be to the North, as long as the U. S. military was as Dong and Ho were it would be a after North Vietnamese, and Chinese officials to their about an early international on South Quinn-Judge believes that the and the of the against it would more difficult to find Vietnamese in the DRV to in of a negotiated peace” (p. In even before 1963, Vietnamese Communist were largely in of their the of The end of a Vietnam under the Lao Dong was in of to was As for South Vietnam, the of Diem the U. S. and This was by Nguyen Van efforts to any of “Third as in the the mid-1960s, the view was that the United States could not the war and there would have to be a negotiated were there could be an solution for South to the and but not by other The with this solution was that it would not have from the The alternative was the French which of both Communists and U. S. from this solution could be out was The third solution was based on a by at in October 1966 on the of neutralization to Southeast with to The was by the U. S. and was published by as a The attention to the appeals and of neutralization but neither was their of any more than the other that been this is not to that the “Third no role in the eventual political settlement in South book describes the by and as as the of and which was by as most of South Vietnam's “third These as the late Marilyn Young in her of the book, efforts to about It is certainly a story that Her for the efforts of the Third Force is certainly a her she the of this of the to as a of the with a that the However, there is no in or is the of the there was a in which Vietnam would have to as a “Third that being to at with the and at other with the Communist or to independent of the two it would have been in Washington However, that is the of this “Third or the “Third is preferred would have been the or However, as is the of the the the of the would to and Ang Cheng for their and on When the book, I that it be as or so I to and Ang Cheng for it What I to by out this story of in a superpower was the of the idea that step in this was In these when peace and peace have it was time that Vietnamese on are long past the when the of any of the including is much more to be written on the of alternatives and opportunities for peace in the of the Vietnam War (and for that This that free from the of the and back to the evidence that during the war The historical in Washington and Hanoi has in years into a but that there was a war in This was Le who Ho Chi Minh and as Secretary of the Communist of Vietnam is by Hanoi as a to the of from the and from the who one of Hanoi's most Le as the and of the Tet even though he was out of the country when the key in the were (at a by It be that there is not on this in Vietnamese Communist in the of the country have published in book, which are U. S. historiography Le is held for until the even though there is much evidence to support the idea that he after 1968, for a complex of and for the of the Paris in Nguyen Van Thieu in Saigon a of that both the military and the political of the the as in a by still Hanoi for the fact is that the Vietnamese Communists and their Vietnam were using at their to unify Vietnam under the government that the war with and the Geneva in However, the United States on the French as a of the free in its against As U. S. and intelligence in one of the on The Vietnam War, the U. S. to the Vietnamese at a of a of book is that Communist would have preferred a political solution to the that and so would in that political were the U. S. attempt to an independent state in South Vietnam, the U. S. that the Communist would be an (a and the of in as began to and the Vietnamese Communists to to the against the United years of military involvement in Vietnam, the war out of with the It not be that by the end of 1973 the and in Hanoi for a final military at a time when to the Paris could no be