268. Telegram From the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson in Texas1
Washington, January 2, 1969.
CAP 9026. Cy Vance reports by telephone:
- —He had a meeting of 4 hours and 15 minutes with the North Vietnamese on modalities;2
- —They insist on a simple round table;
- —They caved on the flags and name plates;
- —On drawing they shifted from one of our proposals [Page 791] (in which the U.S. and Hanoi would draw, determining the first speaker, with subsequent speakers following in a sequence we could determine) to a proposal in which the GVN and the NLF would do the drawing for the two sides.
If we are to get a simple round table, Thieu tells us he will have to go back to the Vietnamese NSC. Moreover, Saigon will not like at all the drawing to be done by the NLF and the GVN for the two sides. Therefore, we have had important movement (on the flags and name plates) but we still do not have a deal.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Vietnam, HARVAN Misc. & Memos, Vol. VIII. Secret. No transmission time is indicated.↩
- The delegation transmitted a summary of the meeting in telegram 38/Delto 1116 from Paris, January 2. (Ibid., HARVAN Paris Todel-Paris Delto, Vol. XVIII) The full report of the meeting is in telegram 75/Delto 1119 from Paris, January 3. (Ibid., HARVAN Chronological, Vol. XXVI)↩