Talks in Warsaw with Polish intermediaries in mid-1966 seemed to be making progress until, at a delicate point, American air strikes, directed for the first time at targets in and around Hanoi, caused North Vietnam to cancel the contacts. The episode showed that neither side basically wanted negotiations to succeed. In his unsparing way, McNaughton stated the dilemma for the United States: aiming for victory could end in compromise but aiming for compromise could end only in defeat, because to reveal “a lowering of sights from victory to compromise … will give the DRV [North Vietnam] the smell
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