Satow's Diplomatic Practice (6th Edition)
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33 Secret or Back-Channel Diplomacy, Religious Diplomacy, and Business-Orientated Diplomatic Advisers
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Published:24 September 2009
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33.1 A single definition of secret diplomacy is hard to construct. Berridge describes it thus: ‘In current usage “secret diplomacy” can mean keeping secret all or any of the following: the contents of a negotiation; knowledge that negotiations are going on; the content of any agreement issuing from negotiations; or the fact that any agreement at all has been reached’.1 A corollary of this is often the secrecy of the identity of the person or persons involved in the negotiation. Successful instances of secret diplomacy include the negotiations to bring the Vietnam War to an end conducted by Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho in 1972 and 1973. By 1972, both sides in the Vietnam War were ready to compromise. The US was no longer insisting on the withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces from the South and the North Vietnamese were not demanding the replacement of the South Vietnamese leader Thieu with a coalition government. In this new situation, Kissinger and the North Vietnamese envoy Le Duc Tho negotiated in secret a peace agreement in October 1972. The Thieu government, however, denounced the agreement and Kissinger after President Nixon’s re-election attempted to renegotiate it. This led the North Vietnamese to reject the proposed changes and to advance their own. Nixon decided to coerce the North by the so-called Christmas bombing campaign, the most intense campaign of the war. After eight days, the North Vietnamese agreed to sign an agreement much the same as that agreed upon in October. After a combination of carrot and stick, President Thieu also consented. On 27 January 1973, the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet-Nam was signed by the US, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and representatives of the South Vietnamese communist forces.
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