Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
1. PUBLIC ATTEMPTS TOWARD A NEGOTIATED END
TO CONFLICT IN VIETNAM
November 1963: FRANCE proposed talks leading toward the establishment of a neutral, independent South Vietnam. According to the New York Times of 9 March 1965, Hanoi was then willing to discuss the establishment of a coalition, neutralist government in Saigon. But the US rejection of de Gaulle's proposal is as understandable as Hanoi's interest. Diem had just been assassinated, the political and military situations were chaotic.
20 May 1964: FRANCE proposed the 14-nation Laos Peace Conference 1962 be reconvened in Geneva to discuss events in Southeast Asia. US and UK turned dowm this offer; Russia, Poland, Cambodia, India and Communist China accepted.
May 1964: THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL considered a Cambodian complaint of South Vietnamese armed incursions into Cambodian territory. The United States and South Vietnam suggested a UN-sponsored peacekeeping or observation group be created to stabilize conditions in the border area. A Mission of the Security Council visited Cambodia and South Vietnam and reported such a group might prove useful. Hanoi and Peking condemned this UN involvement in the Vietnam situation.
July 1964: U THANT called for reconvention of the 1954 Geneva Conference. The US declined to participate.
August 1964: THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL, spurred and supported by the US, invited Hanoi to join in discussions of the Gulf of Tonkin incident and/or other matters. North Vietnam's foreign minister restated his government's position that the UN had no competence to deal with the Vietnam situation and said any decisions taken by the Council would be considered "null and void."
September 1964
NORTH VIETNAM relayed an offer through U THANT to meet with US officials in Rangoon to discuss ways of ending hostilities in South Vietnam. The US waited until late November -- after the presidential elections -- to reject the offer.
