Hanoi’s vision of a settlement involved a coalition government in the South patterned on the Laos model, together with the withdrawal of the United States. The Soviets, the French, and most British officials also envisioned an agreement along these lines. Most of these observers understood that the Laotian model was an imperfect fit—that unlike Laos, South Vietnam did not have a readily identifiable centrist candidate for any coalition government who occupied the middle between two extremes (there was no Vietnamese Souvanna Phouma);
