State Department and Policy Making

Archive Report

Erosion of State Department's Influence

Paris Peace Talks as Test of U.S. Diplomacy

The peace talks now going on in Paris with representatives of North Viet Nam pose the severest test for American diplomacy since the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. Upon the outcome of the talks depend the easing of bitter divisions among the American people and the reaffirmation of this country's position of leadership in the Western world.1 Negotiations with North Viet Nam, which began May 13, have conformed so far to traditional concepts of diplomacy, whereas the Cuban missile crisis was resolved by resort to power politics; it was the threat of a nuclear showdown with the United States that finally moved the Soviet Union to withdraw its missiles from Cuba. But ...

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