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Regrettably, we do not yet have access to all the documents, including the stillclassified "special dossiers" (osobaya papki) at SCCD, as well as KGB, Foreign and Defense Ministry, and Presidential Archive materials, that are necessary to reconstruct fully from Soviet sources all of the many conversations and probes connected to various diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the Vietnam conflict in 1965-67, including, perhaps most importantly, the so-called MARIGOLD and SUNFLOWER initiatives (to use the secret U.S. government code names), in both of which the Soviet Union played an important role.30 An initial survey of the SCCD archives disclosed only cryptic traces of Soviet contacts with potential intermediaries. For instance, documents failed to clarify what was discussed in conversations with L. Mulkern (vice-president for international relations of the Bank of America), who asked for assistance in establishing unofficial contacts between U.S. President Johnson and the Soviet government, or with Marshall D. Shulman (then an associate of Harvard University's Russian Research Center), both of which were recorded by the KGB (the latter with the recommendation that Shulman be advised that his information had to be confirmed by the U.S. President). While the documents encountered during this early stage of research left these and many other questions unresolved, they certainly pointed at the high intensity of unofficial Soviet-U.S. contacts apparently related to the war (either directly or through mediators, as, for instance, through the services of Austrian Ambassador in the USSR Vodak) in the summer-autumn of 1965.31

Moscow's seeming reluctance to meet Washington half-way in its diplomatic efforts was probably at least partly attributable to the fact that the Kremlin was acutely aware of its limited ability to exert influence on Hanoi's policy—an awareness due in large measure to the complete and objective information sent to Moscow by the Soviet Embassy in the DRV, led by Ambassador Shcherbakov. Perusing the great number of minutes of conversations between Soviet Embassy officials and Vietnamese leaders, WPV members, and Vietnamese citizens, as well as informational letters and reports sent to the Soviet Foreign Ministry and the CPSU CC, one gets the impression that decision-making on the Vietnamese issue

was largely produced in accordance with recommendations and draft decisions sent by the Soviet Embassy in Hanoi—not by the Politburo, the CC Secretariat, nor the Foreign Ministry-and only later were those recommendations and draft decisions rubber-stamped by the top Soviet leaders. This conclusion, albeit preliminary, is based on ample documentary evidence, when, for instance, the Soviet Ambassador sets out a number of ideas in his political letter to Moscow about what should be done, and later the same considerations were put forward as the official views of the CPSU and Soviet government in conversations with Pham Van Dong or Nguyen Duy Trinh.32 So Moscow obviously deemed it advisable to consult the Soviet Ambassador in Hanoi before adopting decisions.

Take the following two examples. The political letter33 of the Soviet Embassy in the DRV, entitled "Soviet-Vietnamese Relations After the Talks Held in April 1968," prepared for Moscow Center on 1 September pared for Moscow Center on 1 September 1968, assessed the results and significance of the opening of the Paris peace talks. Regarding the situation as favorable for achieving a settlement in the best interests of the Vietnamese people, the Ambassador, who signed the letter, believed that the prime task at the moment was "to help the Vietnamese comrades to put an end to the hostilities this year and switch over to a political settlement of the Vietnamese issue." With this aim in view, Shcherbakov believed, it would be advisable to invite a higher-level DRV government delegation to Moscow in October and "try once more to analyze jointly the situation and convince the DRV government to express its opinion on the whole package of the Vietnamese settlement."

Soon afterward, V. Chivilev, the Soviet charge d'affaires in the DRV, presented Pham Van Dong with a letter of invitation from Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin for a DRV party and government delegation to visit the Soviet Union. The date of the visit was later settled and a decision was adopted on a visit to the USSR by a Vietnamese government delegation led by Le Duan in November 1968. Though the materials on the visit remain inaccessible, it seems highly likely that Soviet leaders followed the recommendations of their man in Hanoi.34

Another example of the importance of the Soviet ambassador's advice in decisionmaking dates to early 1974. CC Secretary

Boris Ponomarev, who was in charge of the Party's international relations, submitted to the CPSU CC Secretariat a memorandum, entitled "On a Proposal to the Vietnamese Friends," in which he raised the issue of establishing and promoting relations between the CPSU and the communist parties of several Southeast Asian countries by making use of the authority wielded by the WPV in the communist movement in the region. In other words, he suggested possible Soviet penetration of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. After inconclusive discussion of the proposal, Ponomarev, along with CC secretaries Suslov, Kirilenko, Demichev, Katushev, and Rakhmanin, decided to consult the Soviet Ambassador in Hanoi on the matter.35

The new importance attached to the role of ambassadors and embassies in the process of decision-making on foreign-policy issues reflected a general trend, typical of the Brezhnev era: the growing influence of the bureaucratic apparatus, especially mediumlevel officials, on policy-making. Since top Soviet leaders had little idea of the reality in Vietnam, they willingly entrusted decisionmaking in the sphere of current policy to experts, signing ready-made decisions or intervening only in extraordinary situations.36

Thus, indirect evidence suggests that in defining its stand on the Vietnam War, Moscow largely drew on the opinion of its diplomatic representatives in the DRV. And in 1965-1966 the Soviet Embassy was far from optimistic about the prospects for a peaceful settlement. Meetings and conversations between the Soviet Embassy officials and members of the diplomatic corps and journalists accredited in Hanoi revealed that North Vietnam's leaders were fully committed to continuing the hostilities against the USA. Indicative in this respect was a conversation at the WPV CC on 23 August 1966 between Soviet charge d'affaires P. Privalov and Nguyen Van Vinh, Chairman of the Committee for the Unification of the Country. Gen. Vinh firmly believed that the situation was hardly favorable for opening North Vietnamese-U.S. talks. "Had we been defeated by the Americans," Vinh said, "we would have had no other choice than to agree to hold talks, but we are confidently dealing blows at the enemy and winning decisive victories. What would it mean for us to hold talks now? That would mean losing every

thing...."37 This viewpoint was shared by the entire WPV top leadership.

That is why the Soviet Embassy's report for 1966 included very cautious forecasts about possible changes in the DRV stand. The embassy, in the belief that it was necessary to "exert and broaden, with the support of all peace-loving forces and the socialist countries, strong political and diplomatic efforts in order to bring the matter to the settlement of the conflict in the current year," suggested that the USSR might eventually have to elaborate and present its own peace plan to the Vietnamese comrades. That supposition was made on the basis of what the embassy viewed as a certain coincidence of the CPSU and WPV "assessment of the situation and active promotion of politico-diplomatic struggle for Vietnam."38

In that contest, the USSR sought to evade the issue of acting as a formal mediator at the U.S.-DRV talks (which was what the USA sought). The only role the Soviet Union was then prepared to play was that of a “postman," who would carry both sides' messages, and that of "a night watchman" by offering an opportunity for unofficial meetings between U.S. and North Vietnamese embassy officials in Moscow.39 At the same time, Moscow spared no effort to convince its "Vietnamese friends" of the need to switch from military to political-diplomatic methods to attain a settlement.

The USSR undertook the mission of “a postman" and "a night watchman" very reluctantly, probably for fear of being turned into an official mediator. At least it did not wish to perform those functions on a permanent basis. So the United States had to use the services of other countries, in particular, Poland, Canada, India, etc. However, early in 1967 a new flurry of activity was observed in Moscow. In Jan.-Feb., DRV Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh received Shcherbakov and familiarized him with the gist of President Johnson's letter to Ho Chi Minh, handed over at a regular meeting in Moscow of representatives of the DRV and the US embassies. And Ho Chi Minh's reply, according to Trinh, was to be sent along the same channels.40 Those facts make it possible for us to suppose that by 1967, meetings of diplomats of the two warring parties were held in Moscow on a regular basis.

As to its function of "a postman," in 1967 Moscow regularly supplied Hanoi with

information regarding the requests and offers of U.S. representatives, conveyed during meetings with Soviet diplomats, and delivered messages between the two sides. For instance, on 24 April 1967, "Vietnamese comrades" were informed about a request of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that the Soviet government take the necessary steps for the DRV government to give access to representatives of the international commission of the Red Cross to American POWs then held in North Vietnam. And on April 28, the DRV leaders learned that Johnson envoy Averell Harriman had handed over a U.S. statement on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the demilitarized zone to the Soviet charge d'affaires in the United States.41 There is no doubt that Hanoi also received exhaustive information about the June 1967 Glassboro summit between Kosygin and Johnson.

In 1967, too, the Soviet Union failed to convince the Vietnamese leaders to hold talks with the USA on a peaceful settlement. The Soviet Embassy in Hanoi believed that the DRV leadership would accept the idea of such a settlements only under the following conditions: a worsening of the military situation; U.S. acceptance of North Vietnam's main demands; a change in China's attitude to the Vietnam War; and finally, the socialist countries' clear declaration to the North Vietnamese that they could not afford to bear the ever growing burden of that war for reasons of an international nature or for fear of its protracted nature. So in assessing the results of the Soviet-Vietnamese talks in April 1967 and the subsequent DRV policy, the Soviet Embassy drew the conclusion that at that juncture, "not a single [one] of the above-mentioned situations makes the Vietnamese comrades take the road of active searching for ways to a peaceful settlement."42

Nevertheless, summing up the results of 1967, Soviet diplomats in Hanoi reached the optimistic conclusion that the year 1968 would be the most favorable for starting the process of settlement. They strongly denounced Hanoi's rejection of Johnson's San Antonio formula-so-named after a speech in the Texas city on 29 September 1967 in which LBJ declared that Washington would stop bombing North Vietnam when assured that this would "lead promptly to productive discussions"-pointing out that that formula could not be regarded as “insurmountable"

and advising that the DRV leadership take steps to snatch the diplomatic initiative. In order to convince Hanoi to change its intractable stand on talks with Washington, the Soviet Embassy advised Moscow to inform the North Vietnamese at their next summit with Soviet leaders that the USSR could not afford to pursue a policy of brinkmanship with respect to the United States by getting more deeply involved in the Vietnam conflict, and that therefore the best plan for both the Soviet Union and Vietnam would be if the hostilities drew to a close in 1968.43

The fact that talks on the settlement of the Vietnam issue in fact finally started in 1968 may be regarded as a matter of pure coincidence. At the same time, the Soviet Embassy in Hanoi was farsighted in its assessments-what mattered was not that its forecasts had proved correct but rather the factors on which those forecasts were based. And in this respect, the Soviet Embassy had every reason to hope that the pressure exerted by Moscow on the Vietnamese leaders to accept a political rather than military. solution, would finally bear fruit.

Preliminary U.S.-North Vietnamese talks opened on 13 May 1968, followed on 18 January 1969 by the official quadripartite (U.S.-South Vietnam-North Vietnam-NLF) Paris negotiations. Soviet diplomats justifiably regarded the event as their own success, at least in part. "Without acting as an official mediator," the Soviet Embassy in the DRV pointed out, "the Soviet Union rendered an important service for the two sides to sit down at the negotiating table and open official talks. The USSR spared no effort to convince world opinion and national governments to support an end to bombing raids on the DRV, and exerted pressure on the USA. At the same time it emphasized to the Vietnamese comrades that the year 1968 was most favorable for a number of reasons for launching the process of the political settlement of the Vietnam issue."44

The USSR did much to organize the Paris meeting, including influencing the choice of venue. The record of a conversation between V. Chivilev, Soviet acting charge d'affaires, and Le Duan, First Secretary of the WPV CC, held on 2 May 1968, suggests that on the eve of the opening of U.S.-DRV peace talks, the Vietnamese side offered Paris as the venue with due regard for the Soviet opinion. By that time Soviet diplomacy had already performed “a certain

amount of work with the French." The main factor behind Hanoi's choice of the French capital, Le Duan told Chivilev, was "the opportunity to maintain contacts with Moscow from it."45

The same factor was taken into account by Moscow, which faced the task of keeping the sides at the negotiating table. With this aim in mind, the Kremlin exerted constant pressure on North Vietnam not to disrupt the process. On 13 June 1968, the CPSU CC and Soviet government sent a letter to the WPV CC and DRV government stressing that the Paris talks were vitally important for achieving a settlement of the Vietnam issue. The Soviet leaders also emphasized that they were living through an important period from the viewpoint of opportunities for diplomatic struggle, offering to put the entire weight of Soviet authority in the world in order to triumph in the political and diplomatic contest.46 In an effort to influence the North Vietnamese side and as a hedge against the DRV's sometimes unpredictable behavior, the Soviet Embassy in Hanoi offered to send experts on Vietnamese affairs to the Soviet Embassy in Paris.47 Moreover, Moscow reached an agreement with the DRV leadership for the Vietnamese regularly to inform Moscow on the situation at the talks and their future strategy, tactics, and plans. In turn, the USSR gave the Vietnamese exhaustive information about U.S. intentions.

Nevertheless, despite its promises, Hanoi on several occasions confronted Moscow with a fait accompli. Yet, having "forgotten" to inform its ally about a planned action, the Vietnamese leadership nevertheless insisted on Moscow's immediate support. This happened, for instance, when the NLF published its program of ten points and established the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (RSV PRG). Although Le Duc Tho met with Kosygin on the eve of the program's publication (during a stopover in Moscow on his way to Paris), the leading DRV negotiator never mentioned the planned steps.48

However, in attempting to convince Soviet leaders to exert greater pressure on Vietnam to achieve progress in the talks, U.S. officials often forced an open door. Assessing the steps taken by Moscow for the settlement of the Vietnam conflict along side the difficulties it encountered in dealing with Hanoi's foreign policy, one may

reasonably conclude that the USSR did its utmost to ensure a favorable outcome of the talks, naturally with due account of its own interests.

Moscow continued to play an important role at the Paris talks after Nixon came to power in 1969. The Soviet leaders kept abreast of the latest developments and did their best to influence the Vietnamese position through the services of the USSR embassies in Hanoi and Paris. At his regular meetings with the leaders of the DRV and NLF delegations, the Soviet Ambassador in France, V. Zorin, asked the Vietnamese what questions they considered it necessary for him to raise in his conversations with the U.S. delegation. At the same time, Zorin expressed his "desire" for the Vietnamese side to put forward some specific proposals on military issues and for the NLF to elaborate a specific diplomatic program. Simultaneously, the Soviet ambassador in the DRV, Shcherbakov, warned "the Vietnamese friends" against following an extremist path, such as the temptation to pursue a purely propagandist policy or to resort exclusively to military methods in relations with the USA.49

Richard Nixon's victory in the 1968 elections marked a turning point in U.S. policy toward the USSR, as the incoming administration made every effort to obtain greater Soviet involvement and cooperation in the process of achieving a peaceful settlement in Vietnam. The newly elected U.S. president and his national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, decided that all problems in Soviet-American relations were linked to the Soviet stand on the Vietnam issue. And if efforts in Moscow did not quickly or sufficiently pay dividends, Nixon and Kissinger were prepared not to miss an opportunity to play "the Chinese card" to make the Soviet leaders more tractable.

Like his predecessors, Nixon was convinced that the USSR had unlimited control over Hanoi's policy and that as soon as it issued the appropriate orders, the Vietnamese leaders would be ready, willing, and obliged to conclude the talks. As a result, each time the Paris talks reached a blind alley, the White House turned to Moscow to help find an acceptable escape route. After a meeting with Kissinger on 12 June 1969, when the American openly asked the USSR for assistance to overcome the latest crisis in the talks, Soviet Ambassador in the United

States Anatoly F. Dobrynin reported to Moscow: "All indications are that his [Nixon's] attempts to convince the USSR to help the USA in the settlement of the [Vietnam] conflict, will be repeated in the future, and this will probably be felt in the course of our talks with this administration on other international issues, if not directly, then at least in the form of procrastination in the course of such talks or in decision-making on other issues."50

In this respect, however, former CIA chief William Colby was probably right when he wrote in his memoirs about his deep skepticism with respect to the Soviet Union's ability to exert pressure on its friends, who were "stubborn and full of determination.”51 Nevertheless, in spite of its limited opportunities, the USSR managed to make a considerable contribution to the peaceful settlement of the Vietnam conflict. So the signing of the bilateral agreement by the DRV and USA, on 27 January 1973, on the end of hostilities and restoration of peace in Vietnam, irrespective of all its weak points, was an important result of the efforts of Soviet diplomacy as well.

In conclusion, in assessing Soviet policy toward the Vietnam War in the 1964-1973 period, including in the sphere of SovietAmerican ties, it may be asserted that in spite of all the difficulties, complications, and human costs associated with the conflict in Southeast Asia, the superpowers avoided grave crises, upheavals, or direct confrontations in their bilateral relations—thus preserving a degree of general international stability and paving the way toward the U.S.-Soviet détente of the early-mid-1970s.

1. Space precludes a full listing of relevant titles here: for detailed references see Ilya V. Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, forthcoming [1996]).

2. According to data of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the period from 1961 to 1966 the Soviet Union supplied the NLF via the DRV as disinterested assistance 130 recoilless weapons and mortars, 1400 machine guns, and 54,500 fire-arms with ammunition. Prior to 1965 the USSR supplied to North Vietnam German models of arms. (Top Secret Memorandum of the Southeast Asia Department, USSR Foreign Ministry, "Soviet Moral and Political Support of and Material Aid to the South Vietnam Patriots," 24 March 1966, SCCD, fond (f.) 5, opis (op.) 50, delo (d.) 777, listy (ll.) 58-59.) This aid supplemented the economic assistance Moscow rendered to the DRV. China, in turn, in the period from 1955 to 1965, supplied the DRV with economic assistance to the total value of 511.8 million rubles, including 302.5 million rubles as gift. (Memorandum of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, "CPR's

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[Chinese People's Republic's] Economic Assistance to the Socialist Countries," 30 March 1966, SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 254, 1. 172.)

3. Telegram to the Soviet Ambassador to France, SCCD, f. 4, op. 18, d. 582, St.-95/462 g., 14 February 1964. 4. International Department of the CPSU CC to the CC, 25 July 1964, SCCD, f. 4, op. 50, d. 631, l. 163-164. 5. Memorandum from USSR Ministry of Defense to the CPSU CC, 14 July 1967, SCCD, f. 4, op. 59, d. 416, l. 119-120.

6. Top Secret Memorandum from the Soviet Embassy in the DRV, “On the Political Situation in South Vietnam and the Position of the DRV," 19 November 1964, SCCD, f. 4, op. 50, d. 631, 1. 253.

7. See, eg, Gabriel Kolko, Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States and the Modern Historical Experience (New York: Pantheon, 1986), 157.

8. For further analysis of the impact of Khrushchev's overthrow on Soviet policy toward Vietnam, see the paper presented by Ilya V. Gaiduk to the conference on the Vietnam War held in October 1993 at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, Texas.

9. A memo, sent to the CPSU CC by I. Shchedrov, a Pravda correspondent in Southeast Asia, may serve as an indirect basis for such suppositions. In it Shchedrov analyzes the situation in the region in the first half of the 1960s from the viewpoint of Soviet and Chinese influence on the events in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. He not only criticizes the Soviet Union's restraint, shown before the end of 1964, and expresses concern in view of stepped-up activities by the PRC in those countries, but also offers a series of measures to improve the situation. In their time the top CPSU leadership familiarized themselves with that memo, and the following note by Boris Ponomarev testifies to this: “Please read this memo and submit proposals and measures on issues which call for them." (SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 264.) 10. Political Report of the Soviet Embassy in Hanoi for 1966, SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 263, 1. 148.

11. Memorandum, “Soviet Moral and Political Support," SCCD, f. 5, op. 50, d. 773, 1. 59; Soviet Embassy in Hanoi Political Report for 1966, SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 263, 1. 148.

12. Soviet Embassy in Hanoi, Political Report for 1967, SCCD, f. 5, op. 59, d. 331, l. 26.

13. Shchedrov Memorandum, SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 264, 1. 96.

14. Soviet Embassy in Hanoi, Political Report for 1966, SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 263, l. 130.

15. Memorandum of Conversation between Soviet Embassy in Hanoi interpreter M. Isaev and Ho Hai Thuy, 25 October 1966, SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 261, 1. 167.

16. Memorandum from USSR Ministry of Commercial Shipping for the CPSU CC, 18 July 1966, SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 263, l. 38-41. The report by the Ministry of Commercial Shipping was a source of concern by the Soviet leadership. It was decided to make use of the information contained in it, in the course of talks with the DRV party and government delegation to be held in Moscow (SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 263, l. 43). 17. Soviet Embassy in Hanoi, Political Report for 1970, SCCD, f. 5, op. 62, d. 495, 1. 109.

18. Memorandum from Izvestia correspondent M. Ilyinskii for CPSU CC, 29 January 1968, SCCD, f. 5., op. 60, d. 368, 1. 19.

19. Memorandum from Committee of State Security (KGB), 21 February 1966, SCCD, f. 5, op. 6, d. 511. Regrettably, this document is kept in a "special dossier," so we have had no opportunity as yet to study it. 20. Soviet Embassy in Hanoi, Political Report for 1966,

SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 263, l. 141, 259.

21. Soviet Embassy in Hanoi, Political Report for 1970, SCCD, f. 5, op. 62, d. 495, 1. 104.

22. A memo by Defense Minister Grechko to Brezhnev serves as testimony to this fact. Grechko wrote that on 30 March 1968 a U.S. F-111A plane was brought down by an anti-aircraft Dvina complex in the area of Hanoi. He also mentioned measures, adopted by Soviet experts to improve the anti-aircraft complexes after they had obtained information about the use of high-speed aircraft (up to 3700 km per hour) by the US air forces (SCCD, f. 5, op. 60, d. 232, II. 9-10).

23. Memorandum of Conversation between Deputy Chief of the USSR Foreign Ministry Southeast Asia Department S. Nemchina and Head of the NFLSV Permanent Mission in Moscow Dang Cuong Minh, 2 September 1967, SCCD, f. 5, op. 59, d. 416, l. 139. 24. Memorandum from the Soviet Embassy in the DRV, 14 March 1967, SCCD, f. 5, op. 59, d. 329, 1. 43. 25. Memorandum from the State Committee on the Economic Relations (GKES), “On the Economic and Technical Assistance to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam," 29 July 1966, SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 263, II. 54-55; Soviet Embassy in the DRV, Political Report for 1968, SCCD, f. 5, op. 60, d. 375, 1. 48; Soviet Embassy in the DRV, Political Report for 1969, SCCD, f. 5, op. 61, d. 459, l. 123; Soviet Embassy in the DRV, Political Report for 1970, SCCD, f. 5, op. 62, d. 495, l. 104. 26. Washington's first attempts to reach agreement with the DRV leaders were made back in 1962, under President Kennedy's administration, so we can only suppose what could be the results of those contacts, had President Kennedy been alive. A. Goodman, for instance, believes that as a result of President Kennedy's assassination, the USA lost an opportunity to reach agreement with Hanoi. (A.E. Goodman, The Lost Peace: America's Search for a Negotiated Settlement of the Vietnam War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1978), 14.)

27. To this testifies the KGB information of President Johnson's talks with Italian Foreign Minister A. Fanfani (SCCD, f. 5, op. 50, d. 690, 1. 93).

28. KGB Memorandum, 11 December 1969, SCCD, f. 5, op. 61, d. 558, 1. 178-179.

29. Main Intelligence Administration (GRU), USSR Ministry of Defense, to CPSU CC, 23 August 1966, SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 262, II. 237-238. (For an English translation of this document, see CWIHP Bulletin 3 (Fall 1993) 61-62.)

30. The most complete records of these and other secret Vietnam peace efforts during the period 1964-68, based on classified U.S. government records, can be found in George C. Herring, ed., The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1983). MARIGOLD and SUNFLOWER are covered in greater detail, using additional Soviet and U.S. sources, in Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War (forthcoming).

31. KGB Memoranda, 5 and 21 July 1965 and 7 October 1966, SCCD, f. 5, op. 6, d. 379, 389, 533.

32. Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

33. Political letters from Soviet embassies were in fact detailed reports of the situation in the respective countries, their domestic and foreign policy, and usually written in connection with particular events.

34. Political Letter, "Soviet-North Vietnamese Relations after the April 1968 Talks," 1 September 1968, SCCD, f. 5, op. 60, d. 369, 1. 114; see also SCCD, f. 5, op. 60, d. 369, 11. 129, 131-132, 133.

35. Memorandum from B. Ponomarev for the CPSU CC, "On a Proposal to the Vietnamese Friends," attached to resolution of the CPSU CC Secretariat, SCCD, f. 4, op. 22, d. 1240, Art. No. 113/10, 12 February 1974. 36. Sometimes the situation looked simply ridiculous. Mentioned in the list of materials, included in "special dossiers," is the draft decision on the reply to Le Duan's personal message to Brezhnev, presented by the CC Department and the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 24 December 1974. There is the following note on the card of that document, written by Brezhnev's aide, Alexandrov: "to C-de K.U. Chernenko. Leonid Ilyich asked to hold a vote on this proposal (he has not read the text)." It turns out that top Soviet leaders signed documents either having learned the gist of the document at best, or having read only its title.

37. Memorandum of Conversation between Soviet Charge d'Affaires in Hanoi P. Privalov and Chairman of the Lao Dong Party's Committee on the Unification of the Country Nguyen Van Minh, 23 August 1966, SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 264, II. 173-174.

38. Soviet Embassy to the DRV, Political Report for 1966, SCCD, f. 5, op. 58, d. 263, 1. 259.

39. For details, see Herring, ed., The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War, and Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War (forthcoming).

40. KGB Memorandum, 28 January 1967, SCCD, f. 5, op. 60, d. 680; Memorandum of Conversation between Soviet Ambassador Shcherbakov and DRV Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh, 15 February 1967, SCCD, f. 5, op. 59, d. 327, l. 145.

41. USSR Foreign Ministry, list of questions on which the Vietnamese comrades were informed, SCCD, f. 5, op. 60, d. 369, l. 15.

42. Soviet Embassy to the DRV, Political Letter, “Soviet-North Vietnamese Talks of April 1967 and the Policy of the PTV [Workers' Party of Vietnam] on the Settlement of the Vietnamese Problem," August 1967, SCCD, f. 5, op. 59, d. 327, l. 263.

43. Soviet Embassy to the DRV, Political Report for 1967, SCCD, f. 5, op. 59, d. 332, 1. 133-138. 44. Soviet Embassy to the DRV, Political Report for 1968, SCCD, f. 5, op. 60, d. 375, 1. 30-31.

45. Memorandum of Conversation between Soviet Charge d'Affaires in the DRV V. Chivilev and Le Duan, 2 May 1968, SCCD, f. 5, op. 60, d. 376, l. 47. 46. Soviet Embassy to the DRV, Political Letter, "Soviet-North Vietnamese Relations After the April 1968 Talks," SCCD, f. 5, op. 60, d. 369, l. 109. 47. Soviet Embassy to the DRV, Political Report for 1968, SCCD, f. 5, op. 60, d. 375, 1. 31. 48. Soviet Embassy to the DRV, Political Report for 1969, SCCD, f. 5, op. 61, d. 459, 1. 117. 49. Memorandum of Conversation between Soviet Ambassador V. Zorin and Xuan Thuy and Tranh Byu Khiem, 21 February 1969, SCCD, f. 5, op. 61, d. 460, 11. 56-60, 131-134. (For an English translation, see CWIHP Bulletin 3 (Fall 1993), 62-63.

50. Memorandum of Conversation between A. Dobrynin and H. Kissinger, 12 June 1969, SCCD, f. 5, op. 61, d. 558, 1. 103. (For an English translation of this document, see CWIHP Bulletin 3 (Fall 1993), 63-67.) The contents of this conversation, as the note on the document testifies, were reported to Brezhnev, so the top Soviet leadership had been informed about Washington's intentions.

51. William Colby and James McCargar, Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America's Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam (Chicago, N.Y., 1989), 335.

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Dee, forthcoming). A recipient of fellowships Operation Lumbago from CWIHP and the Norwegian Nobel Institute, he originally presented the findings in this article to the January 1993 Conference on New Soviet Evidence on Cold War History in Moscow, organized by CWIHP and IUH. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Oganez V. Marinin, then a staff archivist at SCCD (now at the State Archive of the Russian Federation [GARF]), in locating archival documents for this article.

RESEARCH IN MOSCOW

Scholars needing research performed in the Russian archives may contract with scholars at the Russian Center "Archival Conversation at the Historical Archives Institute (HAI) of the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow. For further information please direct inquiries to:

Prof. Alexander B. Bezborodov Historical Archives Institute (HAI) Russian State University for the Humanities

Moscow, Russian Federation

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In the early morning of 29 December 1965, Jerzy Michalowski was awakened by Polish military authorities, who informed him that U.S. Air Force One, with ambassador Averell Harriman on board, was requesting permission to land in Warsaw. Harriman's peace mission was part of a broad diplomatic offensive that coincided with the Christmas bombing halt of 1965. A 14-point peace plan, including immediate face-to-face negotiations, was presented to the Poles, with the request that it be passed on to the North Vietnamese government. A meeting with Communist Party Secretary Wladislaw Gomulka followed (Michalowski was not present, but he could hear Gomulka haranguing Harriman through a thick oak door). The next day, Michalowski departed for Hanoi, with intermediate stops in Moscow and Beijing. Friends and co-workers were told that his absence was due to a severe bout of lumbago.

In Moscow, Michalowski met with Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who expressed support for the mission, but predicted (correctly) that Chinese leaders would try to sabotage it in any way they could. In Beijing, Deputy Foreign Minister Wang Bingnan angrily denounced any offers of peace and condemned Poland's participation in the American scheme. Michalowski decided to terminate the meeting when Wang became abusive. This stormy session was followed by a lavish banquet, with many cordial toasts and remarks. Arriving in Hanoi on January 4, Michalowski was met by Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh, whose initial response to the American offers was unenthusiastic. The Vietnamese, he claimed, were doing well on the battlefield, and the time had not yet come to exploit these successes at the negotiating table. The same sentiments were echoed during the next two days by Prime Minister Phan Van Dong (less emphatically) and Party Secretary Ho Chi Minh (in much stronger terms). Michalowski's account of these discussions makes clear that the Poles were acting as strong advocates of the peace process, presenting the American plan in as favorable a light as possible. As he left Hanoi,

Michalowski was hopeful that the Vietnamese would eventually express a willingness to negotiate.

After returning to Warsaw, Michalowski joined his chief Adam Rapacki in efforts to persuade the Vietnamese that a positive signal of some kind was in their best interests. Working through U.S. Ambassador John Gronouski, they made it clear that a resumption of bombing raids in the North would eliminate any chance for peace. Norman Cousins, a personal friend of Lyndon Johnson, tried to play the role of intermediary in this process, but to no avail. To the dismay of the Polish diplomats, the United States resumed bombing raids on January 31, and Operation Lumbago came to an unsuccessful end.

Operation Marigold1

This was another attempt to bring the United States and North Vietnam together in secrecy and with a minimum of preconditions. This time, Polish diplomats worked closely with their colleagues from Italy. Michalowski worked on the Warsaw end of the operation. Poland's representative to the International Control Commission, Janusz Lewandowski, Italy's ambassador to South Vietnam, Giovanni Orlandi, and U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge were the main protagonists in Saigon.

Phase I of Marigold developed from a discussion between Lewandowski and Premier Phan Van Dong in June of 1966 in Hanoi. Lewandowski learned that the North Vietnamese would be willing to begin peace negotiations, provided the U.S. suspended the bombing campaign. He relayed this information to Orlandi who, in turn, notified U.S. ambassador Lodge. The American side was anxious to know whether Hanoi would make any overt sign of accommodation (such as refraining from offensive military operations in the South, or reducing traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail) in return for a bombing halt. In spite of their best efforts, Polish diplomats could obtain no assurances from Hanoi, and the U.S. withdrew its inquiries.

Phase II was a lengthier and more complex operation that began when ambassador Lodge requested that Lewandowski present a 10-point peace plan to the North Vietnamese. This time, an unconditional bombing halt would precede the substantive negotiations. Rapacki and Michalowski under

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