| Sumario: | A study of efforts by Ghana’s president Kwame Nkrumah and Tanzania’s president Julius Nyerere to facilitate peace negotiations in Vietnam in the 1960s demonstrates the utility of Brantly Womack’s theory of asymmetric inter-state relationships as a means of understanding diplomacy. The essay additionally proposes that the attribution by one state to another of “concessional sincerity” emerges as a key asset in managing asymmetric relations. When British Prime Minister Harold Wilson proposed a Commonwealth peace mission to Vietnam in 1965, Nyerere opposed it, but Nkrumah endorsed it and took a leading role in implementing it. The peace mission never took form, but in a final attempt to initiate talks in February 1966, Nkrumah undertook a journey to Vietnam and was overthrown in a coup d’etat in Ghana while en route. Evidence suggests that the United States facilitated the military overthrow and arranged its timing to coincide with Nkrumah’s diplomatic mission.
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