The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

by Barbara W. Tuchman

On top of the Stevenson story, another failed peace overture became known. At the request of the United States, the Italian Foreign Minister, Amintore Fanfani, then a delegate to the UN, arranged for two Italian professors, one a former acquaintance of Ho Chi Minh, to go to Hanoi. While encountering “a strong desire to find a peaceful solution,” they also reported, as Fanfani wrote to Johnson, that Ho’s conditions included a cease-fire throughout North and South, in addition to the Four Points previously announced. He had, however, agreed to begin talks without requiring withdrawal of American forces. Since a cease-fire in place would have left North Vietnamese units inside the South, it was not acceptable to the United States, but Rusk conveyed the American rejection on the grounds of finding “no real willingness for unconditional negotiations” in Hanoi.