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THE NEGOTI’ oN PUZZLE 53 that the United States intends to keep its military forces i South Vicinam indefinitely and that North Vietnam must abandon its goal of reunification of Victnam. North Victnam showed no inter- est in these terms and the National Liberation Front flatly rejected any attempts to negotiate as long as any United States forces remained in Vietnam,?7 On April i, however, William Warbey, a British Labor MP, reported that his talks with Ho Chi Miuh indicated that the only precondition for negotiations on which the North would insist was cessation of United States bombing attacks upon it.’* On April 7, President Johnson, in his speech at Johns Hopkins University, declared that the United States would consent to “un- conditional discussions.” He stipulated, however, that the United States would settle for nothing Jess than an “independent” South Vietnam. His speech was predicated on the assumption that the National Liberation Front was an adversary with whom the Uniied States was not willing to negotiate. He insisted that North Viet- nam, urged on by Peking, was the ageressor, and that orders, men, supplies, and arms flowing in from the North were “the heartbeat of the war.” This lent special significance to his proviso that the United States would enter into discussions with the govermnents concerned. Reactions to this speech were predictable. The National Libera- tion Front considered the speech proof that the United States was ignoring it, the chief antagonist. The National Liberation Front and North Vietnam both knew that Hanoi could not end the war on behalf of the National Liberation Front, even if it wanted to do so. Peking rejected the speech as a device for perpetuating the partition of Vietnam and letting the United States stay on in South Vietnam, thus ensuring the rule of the American puppet govern- ment there.¥ On April 11, the South Vietnamese government published a leaflet that was scattered by American planes over North Viet- nam.”° This leaflet stated that the National Liberation Front would ® New York Times, March 9, 1965. » The Times of London, April 1, 1965, »* New York Times, April 9, 1965. ™ From United States Information Agency. Saigon.