JFK's diplomatic end to Vietnam fizzled

BOSTON, June 6 (UPI) -- Documents from W. Averell Harriman and the Polish government indicate President Kennedy tried a back channel diplomatic settlement to tensions in Vietnam.

The newly uncovered documents show more than 40 years ago, John F. Kennedy and the Soviet Union may have secretly sought a diplomatic settlement to the war in Vietnam, starting three years before the United States sent combat troops, the Boston Globe reported.

The documents indicate Kennedy planned to use his friend John Kenneth Galbraith, then ambassador to India, to reach out to the North Vietnamese in April 1962 through a senior Indian diplomat, according to a secret U.S. State Department cable never dispatched.

Another back-channel attempt was made in January 1963 to Soviet leaders, via the Polish government.

Why these attempts were not pursued further is unknown, the Globe said.

When Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, there were some 16,000 U.S. military personnel in Vietnam. More than 500,000 eventually were deployed in the war that raged for another decade.