By emphasizing his government’s patience and its determination not to provoke the United States, Pham Van Dong appears to have been trying, as Wallace J. Thies has put it, to “sketch out a solution allowing the U.S. a face-saving exit from the war.” Bringing about such an exit remained a key goal among Hanoi strategists: they were well aware of the immense military capabilities of the United States and wanted to do nothing that might encourage Washington to drastically escalate its role in the war. Thus, although Pham Van Dong showed little concern about, or even interest in, Seaborn’s
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