Determination of the heroes
“Reckoning himself the spokesman of truth, Le Duc Tho acted as if he had nothing to do with our manner of leading negotiations: making concessions was immoral to him, except for when an overriding reason of supreme order intervened; and on the other hand he was more than ready to wait indefinitely for us to give in. He was determined to find a privileged spot in the epic pantheon of Vietnamese wars […] And in fact, there is no doubt that Le Duc Tho had the makings of a hero: but the thing we realized only too late –and that, in the United States, many never came to realize- is that heroes are such only thanks to a monomaniacal determination. Rarely are they pleasant persons: their rigidity is a close relative of fanaticism, and skills that characterize them are certainly not those needed for peace negotiations.”
Henry Kissinger on Le Duc Tho (White House Years,1979), the Vietnamese revolutionary who fought French colonial occupation in Vietnam for 24 years, spending 11 of them in prison and that later in 1956 masterminded, among others, the communist insurgency against the government of Southern Vietnam. They stroke a deal aimed at ending American official involvement in the Vietnam war (1965-1973) after 3 years of secret talks with the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. Both were awarded the Nobel Peace Price for such agreement: Le Duc Tho refused it arguing that “there is not yet peace in my land”, Kissinger kindly declined collecting the award and sent the U.S. ambassador to Norway instead.
North Vietnam (taking advantage of USA withdrawal and incurring in continuous violation of the cease-fire agreements) went on figthing till claiming victory against South Vietnam in 1975.
Tags: heroe, Kissinger, Le Duc Tho, Nobel
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.