Chapter 419: 1969
1969 was not a special year; it was merely the beginning of President Nixon’s term.
But for some people, it was profoundly significant.
Japan writer Murakami Ryu’s autobiographical novel “69” was named after this year.
That year, University of Tokyo stopped its entrance examination, the Beatles released “The White Album,” “Yellow Submarine,” and “Abbey Road,” the Rolling Stones released their hit single “Honky Tonk Women.” A group of people known as hippies also appeared, with long hair, calling for love and peace. Paris, De Gaulle stepped down; Vietnam, the war was still continuing.
The above is the opening paragraph of “69.”
In this timeline, there was one more sentence: Nixon was at a loss facing the Vietnam War, and under North Vietnam’s demand, he had to cut short the professor’s vacation ahead of time and send the professor to Geneva to mediate the war.
In January 1969, Washington D.C. was as cold as usual, the air in the Oval Office felt solidified, with only the crackling sound of wood burning in the fireplace.
President Nixon leaned back in his high-backed leather chair, his fingers unconsciously tapping the handrail.
He had just ended a phone call from Kissinger, whose voice was tired yet excited: “North Vietnam named you specifically, Mr. President, they only accept the professor.”
The door opened, and Lin Ran walked in.
He was not wearing the usual dark suit of White House staff, but a gray jacket, his hairstyle simple to the point of almost no styling, only his eyes, eyes that seemed able to pierce through all appearances to the essence.
“Professor, I’m very sorry to cut short your vacation in Hawaii. Once the Vietnam War is resolved, I guarantee I will compensate you double the vacation time.” Nixon’s voice was low and urgent, without small talk: “North Vietnam, Hanoi, they proposed a condition regarding negotiations, seemingly the only condition, they want you as my special envoy to Geneva.”
Randolph walked to the desk and stopped.
He did not respond immediately, appearing to be thinking, but in fact Lin Ran was adapting, adapting to everything in 1969.
The air here, the decorations here, the people here, everything happening here.
“They trust you.” Nixon continued, his tone carrying helplessness: “They don’t trust Kissinger, even though Kissinger is also a Harvard University professor, but they think Kissinger or others are just power brokers.
They say you are a thinker, they believe you understand them.
Well, if I were a decision-maker in Hanoi, I would think the same.”
Nixon smiled bitterly and shook his head; this was the professor’s influence.
“The Kremlin is the same, always hoping the professor would participate in negotiations, as if Lin Ran’s position is not NASA Director, but Secretary of State.
So professor, are you willing to take on the position of Secretary of State? I believe you could do this job very well too.
But if you want to take this position, you need to find a suitable successor; NASA cannot easily be without you.”
Nixon chattered on.
He had absolute trust in Lin Ran.
This trust was established since the Huntsville Longzhong Plan.
At this time, Kissinger was not yet Secretary of State; Kissinger became Secretary of State after 1973, and now he was presidential advisor, a position created specifically for him.
Lin Ran grinned.
No matter in which spacetime, politics, economy, and technology are closely related, interconnected, influencing each other, mutually internal and external.
Technological development leads to economic development; this is easy to understand.
Technology influences politics; a recent case with the most profound impact should be how technology brought the rise of self-media, leading to the rise of non-traditional politicians like Trump, non-traditional politicians even sweeping the globe, the traditional white left’s LGBT narrative becoming decayed, this narrative that prides itself on being advanced and progressive was instead dismantled by traditional narratives; the world is so wondrous.
Lin Ran thought to himself, in the 2020 spacetime, he could only influence politics through indirect means; he had just had a meeting in Yanjing, and after returning to Shanghai, under the pretext of seclusion for research, he stayed alone on the top floor of Apollo Technology office building, allowing no one to enter, with meals delivered by a specially designed conveyor belt.
In the 1969 spacetime, however, he could sit in the White House and speak freely, at the center of power in this spacetime, personally operating to influence all this.
He looked at Nixon, thinking that sending the person who least wanted the Vietnam War to end as presidential special envoy to participate in negotiations was somewhat too ridiculous.
“Mr. President, I am willing to go to Geneva.”
Nixon nodded: “Professor, I don’t care what their motives are! I only know this is the only opportunity for America to extricate itself decently from this quagmire!
Every day, we are bleeding in that distant jungle.
I need someone who can sit down with them to talk, someone they are willing to listen to.
They think you are different from us, professor, so go prove that!
Bring peace to America.”
Lin Ran said slowly: “Mr. President, you know, the peace I pursue is not based on military victory, nor on deterrence, but on respect for human dignity.
If I go, I will have to reveal our own hypocrisy in this war.
I will have to tell them that what we call freedom is often just imperialism in new bottles with old wine.
Can you accept such a negotiator?”
Nixon smiled bitterly: “Professor, do you think we have any military victory now? Everything we did in the Vietnam War, hasn’t it been widely reported by our free world allies, all accusing our hypocrisy?
They want you as presidential representative precisely because they don’t want to hear the traditional boring diplomatic rhetoric that they can guess entirely from the first sentence?
Professor, you have participated in too many diplomatic negotiations; I trust you, I will give you the greatest freedom, you are the highest representative of the negotiation team.
You report directly to me; my bottom line is to end this war decently.
I am more tired of this war than anyone.
I am a president, one who has to bear responsibility.
Go, go in your way, dialogue with them. Go tell them this country is also exhausted, go tell them we are willing to pay the price for peace, any price.”
Lin Ran said calmly: “Mr. President, I will do my utmost.”
(Let the war continue.)
Geneva route, Air Force One, the plane flew steadily at 10,000 meters altitude; flying is like that, always giving a sense of unreality.
Humanity actually managed to create an artifact that flies at 10,000 meters altitude; no matter how you think about it, it feels like a miracle.
Lin Ran sat in the luxurious compartment of Air Force One, the book in his hand unturned, his gaze passing through the porthole, staring at the land below covered by clouds; he was thinking.
Not thinking about negotiations, but about some academic issues.
Jenny sat opposite him, preparing for the interview to be conducted in Geneva this time.
Knock knock knock, the door sounded.
“Please come in.”
Kissinger walked in, found a chair, and sat in the aisle beside Lin Ran and Jenny’s seats.
The cigar in his hand was not yet lit.
“The president has high hopes for you, professor.” Kissinger began: “Frankly, so do I.
Though I admit, I still haven’t fully understood your academic viewpoints.
Especially your theses on power structures, which always feel too metaphysical to me.”
As fellow Jewish people, Kissinger greatly admired Lin Ran; whether in academia or the power field, Lin Ran was the target he needed to chase.
The Jewish identity had been propagated everywhere by the Jewish committee.
In Kissinger’s view, Lin Ran was the superior.
Whether in the White House power system or among the Jewish people, Lin Ran was the highest-level Brahmin.
Lin Ran turned his head, his gaze withdrawing from the clouds and landing on Kissinger’s face.
“Henry, the metaphysical is the foundation of thought.” Lin Ran answered calmly, as if teaching a student: “While your beloved realism is merely a practical guide to power; you believe the world is a chessboard, but you forget that every pawn on the chessboard is a flesh-and-blood person.”
Kissinger’s eyes suddenly lit up: “Professor, have you read my work?”
Lin Ran said matter-of-factly: “Yes, the pawns have flesh and blood, so they fight for their respective interests, and therefore someone is needed to play this game of chess to prevent them from slaughtering each other.
The structural violence I understand, I call it the inevitability of geopolitics.
In your view, if we don’t manipulate it, someone else will, and they might be more ruthless than me, causing greater losses.
In Chinese philosophy, this is very similar at the core to the Legalists’ idea of establishing a stable social order, which cannot rely on moral persuasion but must depend on coercive laws, stratagems, and power.
However, in the Vietnam War negotiations, we need to show our sincerity.
Ruthlessness is exactly the weapon they can exploit.
Hanoi is very clear that as long as we think we are invincible, we will continue to bleed.
They want me to go because they know I won’t treat this negotiation as a haggling power game.
I will admit our failure from the start, admit that this war is morally untenable.”
Kissinger thought and then asked: “Professor, that’s not negotiation, that’s surrender.
The president wants a honorable peace, not the moral victory you speak of.
The president wants to retain some dignity, some face, to cool down domestic anti-war sentiment, while not making our allies feel betrayed.”
Lin Ran nodded: “Of course, the president wants these, but he wants ceasefire more, wants to focus attention on domestic affairs.
Face and dignity? They are exchanged for thousands upon thousands of lives.
We cannot maintain an unjust war while talking about dignity.
I will make clear to them that what we truly want is to stop the killing.
That is the only dignity.
This is also what Mr. President hopes for; that is why I have such influence to make the American public accept appeasement, accept the fact of substantial defeat.
Henry, not only does Hanoi hope I go to negotiate, Washington hopes the same.”
Lin Ran’s unspoken subtext was that if he negotiates peace, Nixon could shift the blame for peace talks and appeasement, and the conservatives’ dissatisfaction, onto him; he would essentially be taking the blame for the president.
Kissinger fell silent, staring into Randolph’s eyes, as if scrutinizing this renowned professor in political circles for the first time seriously.
With the other’s authority and status, he could completely refuse Nixon, refuse to take the blame; the Vietnam War had nothing to do with him.
But the other still resolutely took on this heavy responsibility of negotiations, winning negotiation space for America, achieving ceasefire results, and bearing the infamy himself; Kissinger suddenly understood why the professor earned respect, because the other was an unadulterated patriot, an idealist different from Washington politicians.
“Maybe you’re right,” Kissinger finally said, his voice low like a whisper. “Maybe that danger of yours is what we need, a danger that can make the pawns on the chessboard stop temporarily; hope Hanoi trusts you, just as the president trusts you.”
The negotiations were not at Palais des Nations; this time’s negotiations were at an unnamed villa in the suburbs of Geneva, not publicly disclosed throughout, a secret meeting location.
Hanoi did not want it public, nor did Washington.
The negotiations had already lasted several weeks.
During negotiations, only Hanoi’s representative Nguyen Van Hieu and Lin Ran were in the room.
Kissinger and his team were in another room, tensely following via listening equipment, waiting for key concessions, waiting for typical diplomatic rhetoric.
But it seemed none of that appeared.
Lin Ran never discussed military deployment, never political positions, only those details ignored by Washington politicians: villages scorched by napalm, mothers who lost children, exhausted soldiers.
Nguyen Van Hieu was initially puzzled, even somewhat disdainful.
But under Lin Ran’s repeated sincere statements, he began to listen.
Randolph used language Nguyen Van Hieu could understand, discussing structural violence, how imperialist logic turns every individual into helpless sacrifices, whether American soldiers or Vietnam peasants.
On the last day, Nguyen Van Hieu used no diplomat’s stock phrases; his voice was low and hoarse, like coming from a distant battlefield.
“You’re right, professor.” He looked at Lin Ran: “We and you are all just people under the wheels of history.
We fight for survival and liberation, you for an instilled ideal.
But in the end, the blood we shed is the same color.”
Lin Ran did not speak, just quietly looked at him.
Nguyen Van Hieu pulled a small notebook from his pocket; this was his diary, recording his thoughts on countless sleepless nights and repeated communications with Hanoi.
He wrote a line on it with a pen, then tore off that page and handed it to Randolph.
“This is our final bottom line.” Nguyen Van Hieu said, his voice carrying no victor’s pride, only deep exhaustion: “We agree, as long as you withdraw all troops in phases with a timetable, we will release all prisoners of war; we will not demand war reparations, but you must recognize our right to national unification.”
This was an agreement beyond Washington’s expectations.
No complex clauses, no fancy embellishments, only the most core, life-and-death few points.
Lin Ran had exceptionally completed the task.
“Sorry.” Lin Ran’s face was grim, said in a low voice.
Then he continued: “Thank you, sir.”
Nguyen Van Hieu shook his head, then slowly stood up and walked to the window, looking at the falling snowflakes outside.
“No,” he said softly, “we are all thanking you.”
The listening equipment transmitted static noise, followed by the short dialogue between Lin Ran and Nguyen Van Hieu.
When Lin Ran softly said “thank you,” Kissinger abruptly stood up from the sofa, eyes fixed tightly on that machine.
Another young White House assistant looked at him with full confusion.
“Henry, what agreement did they reach?” the assistant asked; the information he heard was very vague.
Kissinger did not answer; he had anticipated countless possibilities: haggling over military deployment, sharp clashes over ceasefire lines, even disputes over postwar reparations, but he never imagined it would be such a simple agreement.
“No reparations, no complex clauses, not even a word mentioning victory,” Kissinger muttered to himself, voice full of confusion: “The professor actually succeeded? As expected of the professor.”
He strode to the door of the room where Lin Ran was, but did not push it open.
In Washington Oval Office, when the phone rang, Nixon was sitting alone in the office.
He allowed no one to enter, because he knew this call would determine the course of his first term.
“Henry,” his voice somewhat hoarse, “tell me.”
Kissinger’s voice came through the earpiece, tone more tense than usual. He described as calmly and rationally as possible the agreement Randolph brought back.
He emphasized the core content of the agreement — America fully withdraw troops in exchange for prisoner release and right to national unification.
Nixon listened, his furrowed brows deepening.
“Say it again, Henry,” he interrupted Kissinger, “no reparations? No guarantees for South Vietnam’s status? No honor?”
“Mr. President, this is the professor’s agreement, one only the professor could achieve.” Kissinger’s voice carried some helplessness. “It transcends our usual political logic; he wasn’t negotiating for victory, he was striving for cessation. Hanoi was clearly moved by his approach.”
Nixon furrowed his brows, pondered for a long time, then said slowly:
“This is a peace agreement, one we cannot refuse. Tell the media we have achieved decisive progress.
Have Henry prepare the press conference.
Tell everyone we are bringing our boys home.”
Nguyen Van Hieu believed until the end of his life that Lin Ran’s apology meant apologizing for the harm America caused to Vietnam.
Lin Ran had two sides; the professor’s side moved Hanoi with sincerity, obtaining unprecedented conditions.
The other side would absolutely not let the war end so simply.
Lin Ran apologized for his other side.
The professor achieved stopping the war, so now V would step in to make the war continue.
