On October 29, at midday, the Korean party and government delegation headed by Pak Seong-cheol [Pak Song Chol] left Hanoi. Although in the published declaration the negotiating parties speak about agreement and mutual satisfaction, the Korean delegation has little reason for happiness. Its reception [by the Vietnamese] was perceptibly cold, and only one member of the Politburo [emphasis in the original], Nguyen Duy Trinh, the head of the Vietnamese delegation, saw them off at the airport. At a mass meeting held in the building of the National Assembly on October 25 evening, no Politburo member was present; the speeches were made by the president of the [Supreme] Court as well as the mayor of Hanoi, Comrade Hung, who is not even a CC member.

At the mass meeting, [Pak Seong-cheol spoke] about the revolutionary alliance [emphasis in the original] of the Asian peoples, the peoples of Korea, the DRV, China, Laos, and Cambodia [emphasis in the original]. Unlike the Korean speaker, Comrade Hung emphasized the importance of the unity and assistance of all socialist countries, pointing out that the unification of Korea and Vietnam can be achieved [only] by the united assistance of the socialist countries. None of the addresses delivered by the Korean delegation included at least a passing reference to the principles of Marxism-Leninism, proletarian internationalism and the united cooperation of the socialist countries. In contrast, these issues constantly recurred in the Vietnamese speeches. Remarkably, Le Duan [the First Secretary of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party], received the delegation only on the fourth day of its stay in Hanoi, but the next day an illustrated article about his reception of [Soviet cosmonaut Valentina] Tereshkova was published on the first page of the newspapers. At the closing reception, it came to light that they failed to reach an agreement with regard to the text of the joint declaration.   

The heads of the diplomatic corps were invited to the farewell address scheduled to be held at the airport at 8.30 a.m., but [the farewell address] took place as late as 11 o’clock, because the debate over the final communiqué had dragged on. […]

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