President Nixon Appoints Henry Cabot Lodge the Chief American Negotiator to the Paris Peace Talks to End the War in Vietnam (The only official, public negotiations to end the War, and Lodge the sole chief negotiator to meet with the N. Vietnamese in a plenary session.)

Richard Nixon

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In February 1953, Henry Cabot Lodge was named U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by President Eisenhower, with his office elevated to Cabinet level rank. The position then was high profile, and Lodge often engaged in debates with the UN representatives of the Soviet Union that were broadcast or covered on television. On the front lines in the Cold War, in 1959 he escorted Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev on a highly-publicized tour of the United States. Lodge left the ambassadorship during the election of 1960 to run for Vice President on the Republican ticket headed by Richard Nixon. Nixon selected Lodge because the latter had made a name for himself at the United Nations as a foreign-policy expert.President Kennedy appointed Lodge to the position of Ambassador to South Vietnam, which showed the import U.S. policymakers were coming to place on that nation. Lodge held the post from 1963 to 1964, and again from 1965 to 1967. As ambassador there, Lodge supported President Johnson's decision to escalate American involvement in the Vietnam War, believing that a Communist takeover in the South would be disastrous for U.S. foreign policy goals.The original appointment of ?Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts?_as ?Ambassador to head the United States Delegation at the Paris Meetings on Vietnam.?President Johnson and American military leaders had long insisted that the Vietnam War was going well, and that they could see the light at the end of the tunnel. But in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive in February 1968, when the Communists were able to initiate coordinated attacks on all the regional capitals throughout Vietnam, even in the American compound in Saigon itself, Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford issued a report to the President in mid-March that the United States could not win the war. Johnson was stunned, and he in turn stunned a nationwide audience on March 31,1968, announcing he would cease bombing north of the 20th parallel, initiate peace talks to end the war, and not seek renomination or reelection in 1968. The peace talks commenced in Paris on May 10, 1968, with W. Averill Harriman leading the U.S. delegation.From the outset, the talks were fraught with difficulties. The U.S. insisted on mutual withdrawal of American and North Vietnamese forces, which would leave the Saigon government in control. The North Vietnamese refused to negotiate anything until all bombing of North Vietnam was halted. When the U.S. finally agreed to that condition, the Johnson administration was unable to persuade, cajole, or coerce South Vietnam and its leader President Thieu to participate unless it was recognized as a legitimate party by its foes. It was alleged at the time that both candidates in the 1968 election were using the talks as a political football, with Hubert Humphrey seeking to appeal to pro-peace voters by insisting that the South Vietnamese participate, and more germanely, with Nixon leading the South Vietnamese to understand that his administration would give them a better deal if they would continue to delay. Formal negotiations would not begin until January 18, 1969, two days before Nixon took office.In the immediate aftermath of the 1968 election, it seems that Lodge was Nixon?s foremost advisor on Vietnam. He urged Nixon to appoint a man of stature to negotiate in Paris, and warned him away from a trip to Saigon for strategic reasons. Nixon adopted these suggestions. In fact, on January 5, 1969, fifteen days before his inauguration, President-elect Nixon named Lodge himself to succeed Harriman as chief U.S. negotiator at the Paris talks. This signaled that Nixon was likely to take a hard line in the talks, considering Lodge?s background as a proponent of American policy in Vietnam as promulgated by President Johnson and his chief military commander, Gen. William Westmoreland.Document Signed as President, Washington, January 22, 1969, just two days after his inauguration, being the original appointment of ?Henry Cabot Lo. Seller Inventory # 7138

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