University of Virginia Library

Ogle Attends Peace Conference,
Confers With Major Delegations

By Terry Jasperson
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

"Unless Nixon will radically change
his policy in Indochina or a revolution
occurs in this country or there is a total
victory by either side, nothing will be
accomplished about the war in Indochina
until the 1972 elections", concluded Bud
Ogle, former Student Council President
and member of a delegation to the Paris
Peace Talks.

The 171 member delegation called the
Citizen's Conference on Ending the War
in Indochina, met with top diplomats of
all four factions of the peace talks from
March 3 through March 11. They
conferred with Ambassador Lam of the
South Vietnamese delegation, David
Bruce, former Ambassador to Great
Britain and now head of the American
Delegation to the talks, Madame Binh of the
Provisional Revolutionary Government
(Vietcong) and Xuan Thuy, Democratic
Republic of Vietnam.

Committee Sponsored

The delegation was sponsored by the
American Friends Service Committee, the
Fellowship of Reconciliation and Clergy and
Laymen Concerned about Vietnam.

The group, Mr. Ogle said, was made up of
lawyers, teachers, clergy and students. Their
ages ranged from 17 to 76 with the average age
being around 45 to 50.

Mr. Ogle said that he felt that the group
was politically moderate to liberal. Most of the
members of the committee were against the
war. After the conferences, some of those who
had been in agreement with American policy
"came back radically opposed the war", he
added.

The Citizen's Committee was the first group
to speak with the chief of delegation of all four
parties. They found all factions very
cooperative, Mr. Ogle said. The entire
committee met with the three different
Vietnamese parties for a full day and a half.
They gave partial information and partial
propaganda, he added.

"It seemed ironic that we would go to Paris
to try to understand the negotiating position of
all parties and would be received much more
hospitably by all three of the Vietnam
delegations than by the U.S. delegation", Mr.
Ogle said. Yet, he added, that he found that Mr.
Bruce was much more "frank" that the other
three factions.

In talking with the American delegation, Mr.
Ogle remarked that Mr. Bruce stressed that he
American policy could never be understood 'if
you felt in any way that the war was a civil
war." Mr. Bruce spent only three hours with 12
elected representatives of the committee. Mr.
Ogle was one of the 12. He said that he thought
the reason he was elected to represent the
group was because he was a graduate diplomatic
history major.

Discussed Issues

The committee discussed the POW issue, the
war issue and the possibilities of political
settlements with the delegations. Mr. Ogle said
that it was amazing how similar the demands of
both sides were. The North Vietnam factions
were willing to have an extended coalition
government in South Vietnam.

The government would be made up of the
government of Saigon minus Thieu and Ky, the
Vietcong and neutral political bodies such as
the Buddhists. Naturally, he said, the South
Vietnamese politicians do not want to get rid of
Thieu and Ky because they are part of the
established power structure.

Mr. Ogle added, that in informal discussion
one of the American delegates remarked 'he
wished that the non-communist
anti-government forces in South Vietnam were
stronger so that they could serve as mediator
between the two opposing factors." He said, "it
seems to me that the American delegation was
not satisfied with the Saigon administration."

American Withdrawal

"The key issue was setting the date for the
withdrawal of American troops." The North
Vietnamese forces will not negotiate peace until
America sets the date, because "that would be
compromising their national sovereignty, by
saying they were will to talk while foreign
troops occupied their country," Mr. Ogle
stated.

"Once this is solved, they will be willing to
negotiate everything else. None are willing to
compromise and in the mean time more and
more people are dying," he emphasized.

Historical and moral considerations were
irrelevant to the negotiating situation; the
political situation and the power factors were
the only things under consideration.

As for the POWs, Mr. Ogle said "the
Vietnamese would set a date for withdrawal."

Secret Negotiations

When asked if there were any secret
negotiations taking place, Mr. Ogle said that
there appeared to be, but Mr. Bruce told him
that he had made an agreement with Thuy to
keep quiet about any meeting they were or
were not having.

After attending the conference, Mr. Ogle
wrote of his impressions, 'In Vietnam the
United States has distributed over 500 pounds
of explosives for every man, woman and child.
In smaller Laos the U.S. per capita munition
package totals over one ton per person. Even
the exhaustive and sometimes intellectually
numbing sessions in Paris with all four
negotiating teams could not blur the image of
America's massive and ominous power. In fact
the image became part of our painful reality as
the callouses of many years of protest marches,
anti-war speeches, antiseptic body counts and
ceaseless war propaganda were peeled off in the
presence of the war's victims."

Mr. Ogle said that he feels that his
experience should be shared and any group that
would like to hear his story may give him a call.

His final remarks were, "It is tragic that the
American people have been able to accept the
role of being 'good Germans' in the face of
destruction in Indochina equal to the ravages of
Hitler."