ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a case study, which shares an obvious similarity with the Panama case. It shows US officials taking measures to end a long-term relationship with an ally, a relationship that is both domestically unpopular and increasingly detrimental to US interests abroad. US officials engaged in secrecy and concealment in the 1972 diplomatic efforts in order to extricate the United States from the Vietnam War. The exclusion of South Vietnamese representatives from the secret negotiations with Hanoi raises ethical questions about the nature and necessity of secrecy and concealment in international negotiations. The story behind the breakthrough on 8 October 1972, in the secret negotiations between Washington and Hanoi, and especially the breakdown in those negotiations on 22 October, begins in mid-summer of that year. In Vietnamese the phrase “administrative structure” implied that such a body would have actual governmental authority.
