In the two decades after 1975, over 1 million Vietnamese resettled in the United States. New resettlement programs arose not only in 1975 with the fall of Saigon and in the years immediately thereafter, but also in 1979, 1982, 1984, 1987, 1989, and 1996. These initiatives resulted from unilateral US policies, multilateral programs organized under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, bilateral programs negotiated between Washington and Hanoi, and, often, a combination of the three. This chapter explores how the Vietnamese diaspora influenced the American approach to normalization with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). It argues that normalization was a protracted process that unfolded over decades and that negotiating and implementing migration programs was a central part of the that process. The US approach to post-1975 US–SRV relations saw significant input from nonexecutive actors. Nonstate actors provided information and political pressure, and created close relationships with elected officials outside the White House, especially members of Congress. These groups, the actions of first-asylum nations, and other transnational forces combined to make negotiating and implementing migration programs a US priority. The contact, cooperation, and compromise that process required normalized US–Vietnamese relations, despite US assertions to the contrary.

This chapter analyzes the two states’ regulation of long-existing cross-border connections and their strategies to differentiate between acceptable and non-acceptable cross-border movements and to extract revenues from the acceptable ones between 1954 and 1957. The Chinese and Vietnamese communists pursued two interrelated goals at the territorial limits of their countries. First, they wanted to build an inward-oriented economy and society at their respective borders by consolidating the national administration of territory. Second, they sought to impose a contrived Cold War “comradeship” between the PRC and the DRV over and in place of the organic interdependence of peoples within the borderlands that had already existed for centuries. The Sino-Vietnamese border, therefore, encountered “joint state building” by the two communist governments, which made the cross-border movement of people and goods more visible, malleable, and, more importantly, taxable to the state. The pursuit of both national and international communist goals by central governments, however, often left the local state apparatus, which bore the burden of implementing these policies, confused and bogged down by conflicting priorities. Moreover, the culturally diverse and fluid on-the-ground realities of the borderlands did not fit easily into the nationalist or internationalist agenda of the two states.

The “two-camp theory” prompted Vietnamese communists to instigate a civil war – the Fourth Civil War for Vietnam – to neutralize domestic rivals immediately after World War II ended. When France initiated its recolonization of Vietnam and the rest of Indochina in fall 1945, Chapter 2 relates, many Vietnamese noncommunist nationalists and other victims of communist attacks and repression opted to collaborate with its armies, for the time being. Thus, the French war in Vietnam became entwined with the Vietnamese Civil War; it also significantly augmented national fracturing and fratricidal violence. French manipulation, a misreading of Vietnamese political realities, and the intensifying state of the Cold War prompted the United States to intrude. By the time of the climactic Battle of Dien Bien Phu, in spring 1954, the United States was footing nearly 80 percent of the French war bill, and Washington policymakers had become obsessed with the evolving situation across the Indochinese Peninsula. The Geneva accords of July 1954 concluded the French War and paused the Vietnamese Civil War by creating two Vietnams separated at the Seventeenth Parallel.

This chapter examines the ways in which the Geneva conference of late 1976, as the culmination of American efforts to push forward with majority rule talks, failed to reach any meaningful results. Part of the failure had to do with the end of President Ford’s administration and the end of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s role in the Rhodesia crisis. Much of the chapter analyzes the diplomatic roles of Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, and how they interacted with American, British, and African diplomats and leaders during the conference. The Zairian leader Mobutu was also involved in assessing the African leaders, and his observations of Mugabe and Nkomo are discussed. The chapter shows how Mugabe managed to make the most of the otherwise failed Geneva talks to solidify his leadership role in ZANU, and how after the conference, he and ZANLA leader Tongogara removed the ZIPA leaders by having them imprisoned in Mozambique in early 1977. The chapter also examines British, American, South African, and Rhodesian views of the future prospects of the Zimbabwean nationalist leaders.

The negotiations over the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty raised fundamental legal issues of conflict between different treaties and the right to collective self-defence. International law was unable to give unambiguous answers to these issues. The two parties have maintained the peace for over forty years not because of the legal wording of the Peace Treaty, but because it is in their national interests. To the best knowledge of the author, the parties have never had resource to the language of the Peace Treaty, except as regards the changes in the security arrangements, and settling the Taba dispute. Nevertheless, it was important for both sides to try and ensure legal language that represented their interests, and the Peace Treaty can be seen as an extremely successful example of legal draftsmanship. The language of the treaty was copied, nearly verbatim, in successive peace treaties that Israel signed with other Arab States. Begin and Sadat received the Nobel Peace prize, a leading textbook on treaty law chose a picture of the signing ceremony with Begin, Carter and Sadat as the photo on its cover, a compliment to the treaty drafting of Egypt and Israel, done with the help of the United States.

From the 1950s on, Sino-Swiss relations were unique in Western Europe. Switzerland’s early recognition of China and its neutrality led to a great deal of goodwill in China and extraordinarily amicable relations in the 1950s. China also used its diplomatic missions in Switzerland as political, economic, and cultural hubs for Western Europe and in some cases even for the entire world. For Switzerland, Sino-Swiss relations were supposed to establish Switzerland as an internationally respected, neutral mediating power. However, China mistrusted Swiss neutrality, and it also used Switzerland as a European hub for embargo goods deals. It was only with the Geneva Conference and China’s use of ‘peaceful coexistence’ as the official basis for its foreign policy that Chinese official statements on Swiss neutrality improved.

This chapter examines the ways in which the Geneva conference of late 1976, as the culmination of American efforts to push forward with majority rule talks, failed to reach any meaningful results. Part of the failure had to do with the end of President Ford’s administration and the end of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s role in the Rhodesia crisis. Much of the chapter analyzes the diplomatic roles of Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, and how they interacted with American, British, and African diplomats and leaders during the conference. The Zairian leader Mobutu was also involved in assessing the African leaders, and his observations of Mugabe and Nkomo are discussed. The chapter shows how Mugabe managed to make the most of the otherwise failed Geneva talks to solidify his leadership role in ZANU, and how after the conference, he and ZANLA leader Tongogara removed the ZIPA leaders by having them imprisoned in Mozambique in early 1977. The chapter also examines British, American, South African, and Rhodesian views of the future prospects of the Zimbabwean nationalist leaders.

During the late 1970s, US policymakers attempted to resume formal relations with China and Vietnam, respond to the Indochinese diaspora, and institutionalize human rights into US foreign policy. These efforts all became deeply enmeshed. Although attempts to normalize relations with Hanoi failed, they cast a long shadow. Thereafter, US policymakers demanded a withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia and a “full accounting” of missing American servicemen were before Washington and Hanoi could resume official talks. These conditions tabled formal negotiations for nearly a decade.

Human rights and humanitarianism became increasingly entangled in this fluid environment. US policymakers described the Indochinese diaspora as both a human rights and humanitarian concern and implemented the Refugee Act of 1980, which codified a human rights definition of refugee with a humanitarian exception clause. The advocacy of the Citizens Commission on Indochinese Refugees (CCIR), select congressmen, and growing Holocaust awareness helped solidify these connections in American thought and law. Nonexecutive actors also created significant momentum for expanded admission opportunities for Indochinese refugees. Because the White House remained preoccupied with other issues, the information, pressure, and publicity the CCIR and its governmental allies garnered were instrumental to creating a broad base of support for refugee admissions.

This chapter focuses on Mujuru’s contribution to the creation of ZIPA, which was a union of ZANLA and ZIPRA. It describes Mujuru’s role in securing a new primary host (Mozambique’s FRELIMO government), from where ZIPA launched guerrilla incursions into Rhodesia. The chapter deepens the book’s exploration of the intricate relations between host governments and liberation movements and contributes to the limited scholarship on the workings of transnational political partnerships, through its examination of the relationship between the FRELIMO government, Tanzania (subsidiary host) and ZIPA. The chapter also explains why ZIPA eventually collapsed. Many scholars have debated, in inconclusive terms, Robert Mugabe’s 1977 rise to power in Mozambique. The chapter argues Mujuru played a pivotal part in convincing FRELIMO leader Samora Machel to back Mugabe’s leadership bid. Mujuru played the role of kingmaker in Mugabe’s rise to the helm of ZANU PF because of his respect for party and military hierarchy and for the secret reason that Mugabe was his nephew.