It concludes that the most advantageous system for the U. S. and the GVN would be the "one-and-a-half party system," in which the NLF and its allies form a party of "permanent opposition" -one which holds a solid power base but is unable to capture control of the national administration in an election.

However, the study states that the most likely system to evolve is a multiparty system in which no group is strong enough to gain a majority in the National Assembly, and elections will be decided by coalitions of groups, concludes that "the U. S. should push for a one-and-a-half-party system but should be prepared to accept a multi-party system."

Huntington said that the paper had been "an interesting exercise" which didn't reflect anyone's views but my own."

"In Washington, people read papers because they are interesting or because they carry weight," he said. "I think people read mine because it was interesting."

Although the report is now more than a year old, Huntington said that he felt many of the strategies it outlined were still valid. "I would favor a settlement which recognized the NLF's authority in territory it controls, because that's the case in reality," he said.

However, he added, recent military successes may have made the Thieu government less willing to negotiate such a settlement. "The Saigon government obviously feels that it has very little to gain from such a settlement now," he said.