Seaborn Final Mission and the End of Bacon
The following text is drawn from the document "A Study of Canadian Policy with Respect to the Vietnam Problem, 1962-1966." The full text of the report can be accessed as a PDF in the introductory page of this exhibit. Each of the sections of this exhibit constitutes a section of the study -- this page is composed of pages 44-53.
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Towards the end of September Seaborn informed us that the Commission would be holding a meeting, as was customary from time to time, in Hanoi early in October; he would therefore be in the North Vietnamese capital from September 30 to October 5 - his first trip north since the May/June visit when he saw the Foreign Minister. In a memorandum to the Minister on September 20 we said: "It must be admitted that Seaborn’s special assignment in Vietnam has proved disappointing in terms of results achieved. Moreover, the public interest and speculation about his possible role as a Western representative with access to both Saigon and Hanoi have tended to reduce the possible usefulness of this channel and perhaps to increase the risks to him personally since the South Vietnamese do not appear to be very enthusiastic about the USA’s posture of willingness to negotiate."
All things taken into account, we recommended that Seaborn not be given any special instructions for this visit.
"The foregoing recommendation is based on the assumption that the Americans would have nothing more of significant substance to add to the views and comments Seaborn has already transmitted. Although I consider it unlikely that the Americans would be ready to consider any new departures in policy at the present time or would wish to convey this to Hanoi via Seaborn, I believe that we should at least let them know that Seaborn will be in Hanoi in early October; this would provide our Embassy in Washington with an opportunity to explain our view that we would not favor any special instructions for Seaborn at this time but that if they have any significant new approaches they wish made in Hanoi, we would of course be fully prepared to consider the matter sympathetically.”
This approach was approved by the Minister. In a telegram of instructions to Washington (Y-690 of September 20), he authorized the Ambassador to tell the State Department that we had "serious doubts about the usefulness of attempting to give Seaborn for this trip special instructions of the type he has had for previous visits ...” “I have therefore decided that unless the Americans have anything of a significantly new and substantive nature to convey to Hanoi, it would be better for Seaborn to play this visit in a low key, looking to general discussions with any political leaders who might be available and able to see him. If, however, the Americans have reason to believe that a more specific and substantive approach might be appropriate in terms of the likelihood of it eliciting a useful response, we would of course be prepared to consider their suggestions sympathetically.”
As I recall the feeling at the time, was something of an understatement. I think the Americans would have had to have given us something of almost staggering significance before we would have agreed to authorize Seaborn to make another presentation. We were convinced that the Bacon operation was finished, and that it probably had been for some time.
The Americans agreed with the approach we had in mind and on what turned out to be his last visit to Hanoi, Seaborn’s most senior contact was with Col. Mai Lam, Ha Van Lau’s Deputy at the Liaison Mission. As was customary, Mai Lam gave nothing away, apart from the usual diatribe. And that was the end of Bacon. In a personal letter to Seaborn just prior to his departure from Vietnam, the Head of Far Eastern Division commented:
"I think there is general agreement that in its specifics at least the charcuterie exercise can be regarded as having served its original purpose or more accurately as having failed to serve its original purpose. It is probably safe to speculate that if any further efforts are to be made in the same direction, an entirely new operation would have to be mounted."
Although the final Bacon mission had taken place in June the operation and its effects continued to make themselves felt for some time. A sensitive diplomatic mission had now become interwoven with public policy and the requirements of Governments to answer increasingly sharp criticism with factual "proof" rather than statements of belief. This was clearly the case in Ottawa where the Minister felt that he had no alternative but to reveal part of the Seaborn story to the House on June 7. Three days later, he was scheduled to appear before the Standing Committee on External Affairs and officials were entrusted with the task of drafting a major policy statement for his use. The draft was prepared in essentially historical terms and emphasized, as we had been doing all along, the need to recognize the true nature of the problem in Vietnam before proceeding to seek a settlement through negotiation.
"In our pursuit of a diplomatic solution there should be no misunderstanding of the root causes of the present hostilities... I think it would be dangerous to misjudge the basic responsibilities of those directly involved and to direct our appeals or our strictures only to those who we know are most likely within reason and conscience to heed them. To apply pressure only to those who are susceptible to our concerns is in my judgment naive. It is definitely dangerous and I say dangerous advisedly because the consequences of a refusal to base a policy on facts and a realistic assessment of objectives can only lead to a worse disaster than the one it seeks to avert.”
While frank and realistic in analyzing the problem the speech went on to reject an exclusively military response: "I am deeply aware of course of the dangers of responding to aggression by military means alone.” Surrender to Communist aggression was an unacceptable solution because it only postponed the day when a firmer stand would have to be taken; and on the other hand a response in exclusively military terms raised the spectre of a wider conflict. Both approaches were rejected as not meeting the requirements of the Vietnam situation. "I have stated repeatedly and I do so today that the only acceptable alternative is to negotiate. Our objective is to get negotiations started. We have lost no time and spared no effort in the pursuit of this objective."
The preparation of this speech was the second time - the first was in connection with the March 8 statement tabling the Commission’s Special Message in the House of Commons - that the Minister scrutinized carefully the details of the draft text and took a personal hand in shaping its presentation. He felt rather strongly that the original draft had highlighted the historical analysis of the problem at the expense of Canadian diplomatic activities in search of a solution. But from the drafter’s point of view the problem was that there was not all that much material to draw on that could be revealed publicly. Our major effort of course had been the Bacon exercise but this was regarded as diplomatically and politically very sensitive. Three days earlier, the Minister had informed the House in very general terms of Seaborn’s latest visit to Hanoi and it was therefore decided that without revealing very much more detail this visit might be dealt with in the statement for the Committee but again in general terms.
"More than that, we have been taking our own quiet soundings of opinion, probing the positions of the interested parties to see whether there is any common ground on which we can build or help others to build. Unfortunately, diplomacy, especially in this context, is a form of activity whose success varies inversely with the attendant publicity. Government positions, especially Communist Government positions, tend to harden markedly when exposed to the full glare of public attention."
In dealing with the Seaborn mission, the Minister noted that this was only one of several trips which the Canadian Commissioner had made over the preceding months. He indicated to the Committee that his own reading of the situation was that the North Vietnamese Four Points were preconditions; this personal interjection was rather more than Seaborn had reported - although in the circumstances, any informed observer had a right to interpret the status of the Four Points in any way he wished:
“Now these are the four so-called "clear-cut” conditions laid down by the Government of North Vietnam. I believe that these represent an uncompromising position and I must say that since Mr. Seaborn was in Hanoi we know that there has not been any satisfactory clarification given to some of the points involved in these four conditions. The real problem is to interpret this position and to see whether any way can be found of dovetailing it with the requirements of the other parties involved.”
This speech was one of the turning points in the formulation of Canadian policy and a full text is attached as Appendix 30. The Minister decided that the “diplomatic activities” passages must come at the beginning of his statement rather than at the conclusion as drafted and right up until he sat down before the Committee, he kept open the option of using the “historical analysis” or not; in the end, the entire statement, but in re-ordered form and with a great many personal interpolations in the initial passages, was used.
It was against this background that President Johnson made his public revelations a week later, and together all of this public commentary stimulated a certain amount of speculative interest. But while it was in the Canadian interest to indicate that it had been following an active diplomatic policy in addition to a hard line within the International Commission aimed at highlighting North Vietnamese subversion, it was almost impossible to reveal any of the essential details of that activity for fear of unleashing other forms of criticism.This was basically the difficulty out of which was born the subsequently much-overworked theory of Canadian "quiet diplomacy" in relation to Vietnam.
Also mentioned earlier was the Eric Severeid article in Look magazine in November 1965 telling the story of U Thant’s efforts to stimulate USA/North Vietnamese contacts in Rangoon in the autumn of 1964. (An earlier account had appeared in the Manchester Guardian of August 9 but failed to stir up the same interest as the advance notification given to the USA Government in mid-November of Look’s intention to publish the Severeid article.) The first official comment in Washington was made by a State Department press spokesman in which he simply referred to the fact that "numerous third party contacts with North Vietnam were reported to us throughout this period. On the basis of the total evidence available to us we did not believe at any time that North Vietnam was prepared for serious peace talks." (A fuller account appears as Appendix 31.) This, as well as persistent rumours about the activities of the North Vietnamese representatives in Paris in late May put the USA Administration under some pressure to "reveal its sources" and to explain why apparent opportunities had been ignored or turned down. On November 24 the USA Embassy in Ottawa approached the Department to ask whether some of the details of the Bacon exercise might be made public by Mr. Rusk.This request raised for us the whole spectrum of problems implicit in our position in Vietnam. Basically we felt that the less said in public about the Seaborn exercise, the better - and if anything had to be said, it should be said by the Canadian Government rather than the American Government. Attached as Appendix 32 is a memorandum to the Minister dated November 25 which is worth reading in full as an indication of our concerns at that time. It should be noted that in the end we gave reluctant permission to the Americans to make limited use of this information subject to three major conditions:
(a) There should be no disclosure of the fact that Seaborn was transmitting messages on behalf of the USA;
(b) A confrontation between the views of U Thant and the views of Seaborn should be avoided; and
(c) Canadian efforts should not be presented as a “major third party approach,” that is, as anything other than a Canadian effort.
Evidently these conditions were seen in Washington as too restrictive and in his press conference on November 26 Mr. Rusk referred to the Seaborn mission only in general terms:
“I am not at liberty to cite all of those contacts which were numerous but you will recall that the Canadian Minister of External Affairs reported to his House of Commons in June of this year that the Canadian Commissioner on the ICC had made several trips to Hanoi over the eight months prior to the end of May. There were other public indications such as the failure of Polish proposals on Laos and the refusal of Hanoi to attend the UN Security Council in August. I myself had a number of discussions with representatives of other Governments including Communist Governments. It seems clear beyond a peradventure of doubt that Hanoi was not prepared to discuss peace in Southeast Asia ..." A fuller account of this press conference is given in Washington telegram 3766 of November 26 attached as Appendix 33.
The Americans seem to have made no further public reference to these matters as a result of the reservations we had expressed. In any event, public interest in these so-called lost opportunities was soon overtaken by the prolonged bombing pause and the American "peace offensive” of December 1965/January 1966.
Throughout 1963 and for at least part of 1964 the option of withdrawal from the Vietnam Commission had been seen at the official level as a real and valid possibility. The delegation in Saigon had raised this matter with Ottawa in mid-1963 when the Commission seemed to be heading nowhere, except into further inactivity or more awkward still, into a vaguely perceived possible confrontation with USA-South Vietnamese policies. On October 18, 1963, the Under-Secretary forwarded instructions to Saigon which stated:
“Our conclusion is that no fundamental changes are possible at this time and that we must therefore ensure that the Canadian Government is in a position to carry out its functions in the Commission on the basis of the best and most complete advice possible.”
Early in September 1964 the Commissioner (Seaborn) reverted to this matter and his recommendations pointed in the direction of withdrawal. The matter was again reviewed in detail in Ottawa and it was concluded that we simply did not have a sufficient body of well documented evidence to prove the Commission’s ineffectiveness in convincing enough way to justify withdrawal. As the storm clouds seemed to be gathering on the horizon we felt that Canadian withdrawal without a documented justification would look like an attempt to move out before the Americans moved in.
As a major statement of Canadian policy objectives at the time, the Minister’s instructions to Saigon are worth noting in detail:
“Until the case for withdrawal can be well documented it is probable that unilateral Canadian withdrawal would be less acceptable than an attempt to arrive at terms of reference, through a new conference for example …” … I believe however that the international political forces focussed on Indochina and on Vietnam in particular are changing more rapidly and more significantly than they have for some years. I also believe that the problems of that area are not going to be resolved by a simple perseverance by all concerned in pursuit of present policies and that we are heading into a conference situation, the precise nature and timing of which however cannot be determined. This is a factor which in my calculations has an overriding and compelling political importance and I am prepared to subordinate other considerations to the role we may be able to play in the situation I can foresee. If such a conference takes place its ill be essential that the Commission render an account of its activities and that this account should provide an adequate picture of the true nature of the problem in Vietnam and the difficulties which the Commission has encountered in discharging its responsibility its because of this problem. We may have to compromise on certain points in order to get this picture but I believe that the final result can be of some help in strengthening the hands of everyone opposed to a Communist takeover in Southeast Asia.”
Against the background of these considerations the Commissioner was instructed to make the Commission function as efffectively as possible and, as closely as circumstances permitted, in the manner originally intended.
“You should seize every available opportunity, and create new ones wherever possible, for the Commission to take account of Communist infringements of the Geneva Agreement, and build up a record of meaningful findings. You will encounter pressures in the opposite direction in the process, and you should attempt to mute but not disregard these since in the final analysis the Commission can say nothing new by way of criticizing our friends whereas the factors on the other side of the ledger are neither admitted nor so well publicized in detail let alone officially recognized by an international body.
“At the same time your secondary policy guideline should be, in the event that, and to the extent that, you are unable to make the Commission function properly, to build up a precise and accurate record of reasons for this failure, whatever its extent may be. Although you will wish to continue to seek guidance on specific issues and in certain circumstances tactical considerations may indicate otherwise, you should think in terms of bringing issues to a final conclusion even at the risk of being outvoted. While our primary objective as above would most effectively be met by unanimity or majority, our secondary objective leads to the conclusion that we should not worry unduly about going into minority since that situation too may have its advantages.
“As far as public opinion in Canada is concerned, I am naturally disturbed by criticism of our position in Indochina. I am however prepared to live with this problem for the immediate future until developments confirm that a conference will take place.
“If international negotiations are undertaken, I consider it important that Canada should have a voice. A decision on future Canadian participation could then be made in light of our experience of what is workable and what is not, depending on (a) the nature of the settlement reached and (b) the degree to which we believe proposed future Canadian membership in any supervisory body could strengthen the existence of an independent reunited Vietnam or more probably an independent South Vietnam rather than helping South Vietnam to slide downhill into Communism. I would be reluctant to jeopardize a claim to a voice in these deliberations (or to bring them about prematurely) by precipitating action now to break up the Commission. I am also anxious to keep open one of the few Western channels of communications with Hanoi. Past results in terms of information obtained or influence exerted have not been impressive but this does not mean that important future opportunities for usefulness will not present themselves.” (Attached as Appendix 34 is the text of telegram Y-682 to Saigon.)
These then were the major guidelines for the Canadian delegation for the foreseeable future. The Commission was to be cranked up and made to do its job.The Canadian delegation was to focus attention on Northern activities in the South as the least known and least documented of the troublesome aspects of the Vietnam situation, but without disregarding American and South Vietnamese infringements of the ’54 settlement. Since there were signs and indications of important political movement in the situation and since a conference seemed a likely outcome, Canada was to maintain a credible locus standing, including access to Hanoi, which would ensure a voice in the Vietnam settlement.
These major instructions were formulated and sent after the second Bacon mission to Hanoi, but well before the third and fourth missions.
With the passage of time, the documentation of the Commission’s failure as a prerequisite to withdrawal became less and less valid; as time passed and circumstances changed, the possibility of withdrawing from the commission became more and more remote. If the Bacon exercise had done nothing else, it had focussed attention on the use of Commission contacts as a convenient and inconspicuous channel of communications with Hanoi. Although it had been Canadian-controlled from the beginning, it had evolved towards the end – through exasperation with the Americans’ use of it and in response to our own changing political circumstances – into a diplomatic undertaking in which the content as well as the form was being determined by Canadian considerations. This led to the realization – tentative at first – that Commission membership offered, in theory at least, special opportunities for dialogue with Hanoi and if this could be developed, it might become a major element in Canadian diplomacy.