WASHINGTON STAR - 23 JANUARY 1972

Indochina War Showdown
Expected Soon In Congress

21

By JAMES DOYLE
Star Staff Writer

The signs are growing on Capitol Hill that the Nixon administration faces an early 1972 showdown on the war in Indochina.

Administration officials, reportedly through Ambassador G. McMurtrie Godley in Laos, have begun suggesting publicly that the ceilings on American expenditures in Laos and Cambodia endanger the security of both countries.

And the leading opponents of the war in the Senate are preparing for a pitched battle with the President to maintain the ceilings at their present levels.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, D-Mont., plans to address the Senate tomorrow on the deteriorating military situation in Laos and Cambodia.

## There for the Grabbing

Yesterday in an interview Mansfield said that both countries were "there for the grabbing" by Communist forces, that he doubted that the Congress would approve more funds above the ceilings set

last year for American aid and that "the Senate wouldn't stand for increased (American) involvement in either of these countries."

Mansfield said that recent military pressure from the Communist forces in both Laos and Cambodia indicated to him "they are still in good shape and they are going to keep on coming. The war will wind down only when there is a complete American withdrawal from all of Indochina."

He said he would reintroduce "at the first properious opportunity" his amendment calling for complete force withdrawals within six months. The Mansfield amendment was approved unanimously last week by the Democratic Policy Committee of the Senate, and it may be voted on at a party caucus, where it could be expected to pass overwhelmingly.

President Nixon signed a modified version of the amendment last year as part of the military procurement act, but he announced at the time that he would ignore it as having "no force and effect."

Mansfield said he was disturbed at "statements emanating out of Laos by some U.S. officials to the effect that $350 million is not enough and may well be responsible for the advance of the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese troops."

"That kind of reasoning is very shallow. It sounds like an excuse for their failures," he added.

In the last session of Congress, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote limitations into the U.S. expenditures for both Laos and Cambodia. The figure or Laos was $350 million and for Cambodia $341 million, but in each case the ceilings were considerably modified to exclude American expenditures for bombing and for support of South Vietnamese troops in the two neighboring countries.

The language of the cutoff proposals made it illegal for the administration to transfer funds above the ceilings into Laos or Cambodia from some other appropriation.

In both cases the ceilings represented approximately the

amount of money the administration had asked for. But in past years the administration has spent beyond its appropriation and returned to Congress for the money after the fact.

Ambassador Godley, who usually talks to reporters only on a basis where he cannot be identified, was quoted in a number of news accounts appearing in newspapers Friday.

## Strategic Base Visited

The Central Intelligence Agency, which has about 300 men operating in Laos, invited newsmen last week to visit the well known but highly secret base at LongCheng, which resulted in a number of stories reporting that the strategic base was in danger of being overrun.

Godley said the ceilings on U.S. expenditures in Laos "may cause difficulties for this mission in maintaining its assistance to the Royal Lao-tian government."

And an unidentified official, also believed to be Godley, told reporters "Maybe one of the reasons the enemy is attacking so heavily here now is because of this amendment," meaning the ceiling on expenditures. "It just shows the tragedy of trying to put a ceiling on the war."

These remarks, as reported by the New York Times, were reprinted in the Congressional Record yesterday along with an attack on them by Sen. Stuart Symington, D-Mo., a sponsor of the ceiling, and Majority Whip Robert C. Byrd, D-W. Va., a generally conservative ally of President Nixon on matters such as the Indochina war.

The ceilings were approved last year with a wide spectrum of support in the Senate, and it is likely that the administration would have great difficulty in getting them removed.

Byrd told his colleagues on the floor Friday: "The reason Congress feels impelled to place ceilings on such amounts derives from the very fact that we do have such bureaucrats . . . who place no rein or check on their visionary activities."

WASHINGTON STAR 24 January 1972 P1

# Shift Talks, Mansfield Asks

By JAMES DOYLE

Sun Staff Writer

Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield said today that the Vietnam peace talks should be expanded to include the opposing forces in Laos and Cambodia and moved from Paris to Southeast Asia.

In a speech prepared for delivery in the Senate, Mansfield suggested that Prince Norodom Sihanouk be returned to power in Cambodia in the place of the Lon Nol government which overthrew Sihanouk two years ago, and that in Laos the "compromised" leadership of Prince Souvanna Phouma be replaced by a new government under King Savang Vathana.

Mansfield said there have been no serious negotiations in Paris during the three years of talks there. He said it now appears impossible to work out a settlement on Vietnam without expanding the talks to include the neighboring countries in Indo China.

"What once was one war, winding down, has now become three wars sealed into one." Mansfield said. "That was the inevitable consequence of the invasion of Cambodia in 1970 and the military adventure into Laos in 1971."

Mansfield said the government of Souvanna Phouma in Laos was created as a result of the second Geneva settlement in 1962 when the prime minister held the confidence of various Laotian political factions.

"For a decade the prince tried to shape a single government

of national unity." Mansfield said. "His efforts have been astute and dedicated but they have also been in doubt from the very beginning.

"In the past few years they have broken down completely and the second Geneva accord has come to be ignored on all sides."

While North Vietnam has supported the Pathet Lao, he said, the United States has supplied "hundreds of millions of dollars of military and other aid" to Souvanna's government and "I regret to say it, but it seems to me that our help has been so overwhelming that we may well have compromised Prince Souvanna Phouma's neutral status beyond any expectation of recovery."

Mansfield said that the king, who resides in the royal capital at Luang Prabang while Souvanna Phouma is in the functional capital at Vientiane, "may command sufficient trust and respect among the Laotian political factions which, when combined with the quasi-religious loyalty of his people, may permit him to speak for the entire country with a measure of authority."

Mansfield's assessment of Cambodia was even more pessimistic. "The blunt truth is that the present government in Phnom Penh is hapless, helpless and hopeless," he said.

### U.S. Aid Sole Prop

"Only the resources of the United States stand directly

and indirectly between the continued survival or the sudden demise of that government."

"The sooner we remove ourselves from this situation the better for all concerned," he said.

Mansfield credited Sihanouk with keeping Cambodia out of the Indochina war for 15 years. "In retrospect," he said, "the overthrow of Sihanouk has proven more than regrettable; it has been a tragedy for the Khmer people and it has served this nation's interests not at all."

"Moreover, our prompt support of a successor government of dubious constitutional lineage with money, arms and American lives has served to compound the original tragedy."

Mansfield concluded: "If there is a source of authentic leadership which might serve to restore the unity of Cambodia and preserve for that nation degree of independence, national integrity and peaceful neutrality, it is Prince Norodom Sihanouk."

Sihanouk is living in Peking as a guest of the Chinese.

22

CJD

CBS EVENING NEWS

JANUARY 25, 1972

## Vareid Comments On What Nixon will Say

**CRONKITE:** By now the subject of Mr. NIXON's address tonight is on the minds of millions of Americans.

**ERIC SEVAREID:** One thing about bombshells, those of metal and those of words, is that when you throw two in quick succession, the blast of the second drowns out the reverberations of the first.

Yesterday the President tossed a bombshell known as the federal budget. The shock waves from this huge deficit announcement are still echoing all over Washington but they will be cut short tonight when the President tosses out more high explosives in the form of a new proposal for bringing an end to our endless Asian war.

In the budget there is a good deal of rearranging of figures but they add up to much the same general line of approach - more for the military, more for space and pump priming of the economy by handouts on one hundred domestic fronts.

But no real change in the national priorities - no gathering of greater financial resources from a

breakthrough on any particular salient.

And the question about tonight's forthcoming proposals on VN will be whether they add up to a substantive change in our policy position and give promise of a real breakthrough.

Advance guessing is even more precarious than second guessing, particularly with an Administration that holds its cards as close to its chest as this one.

So while the place sputters with speculation about the contents of tonight's speech, the positive observations are confined to the general context.

It will be said, it is already being said that the timing of tonight's speech right after the budget blockbuster is no accident. That once again, the Senate is left unconsulted on major foreign policy - that the place for new proposals is the Paris negotiating table, not the TV studio - that hostile governments take something seriously only when they hear it privately.

And that even if Hanoi does not accept the new proposals, Mr. NIXON can only gain politically for having made them.

All probably quite true.

But none of it will change the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans want this war ended, want those prisoners safely home and will welcome any proposal that advances those ends.

Even if the President announced them while doing a buck-and-wing (?) in a musical comedy.

All that counts is what he says and after that what Hanoi says about what he says.

## New Peace Offering For VN?

**CRONKITE:** Amid reports of an impending new US peace offer in VN, President NIXON has scheduled a nationwide television broadcast tonight.

**DAN RATHER:** It is widely expected, because the White House itself has encouraged such speculation that the President tonight wants to talk about setting a final withdrawal date for US VN troops in exchange for prisoners.

Key points to listen for in tonight's Presidential address are considered by many diplomats to be:

Does the President set a specific date, or simply offer to set a date.

Is he willing to set a date simply in exchange for prisoners, or are there other conditions.

For example, does he also want a cease fire.

Is he talking about withdrawing all US air power from Indo-China.

Is he talking about withdrawing from all Indo-China or just VN.

Most government sources expect Mr. NIXON to stop short of setting an actual specific date tonight. They do expect that he will offer again a new Asian peace conference.

Tonight's President address is widely thought to be in at least partial reaction to new pressure from Senate Majority Leader, Mike MANSFIELD, to the news that some POW wives plan to campaign against Mr. NIXON in New Hampshire and part of the President's continuing diplomatic preparation for his trips to Peking and Moscow.

## Reaction To What Is Expected

CRONKITE: Although the President has not spoken, there is already a reaction to what he is expected to say.

Even before the President spoke, the VC delegation in Paris responded to reports that the US would offer a withdrawal date for a prisoner-release.

And that response in effect was, that is not enough.

MARVIN KALB: The communists have been asking for more than just a date for total withdrawal. They have also been asking for the abandonment of Saigon.

Their policy has shifted over the years, but it has now settled on two main points: Etched out in Paris last July 1.

The two points remain inseparable despite repeated American efforts to tackle them one by one.

First, the communists want a fixed date for total US withdrawal.

And second, an end to all support of the Saigon regime including the use of American air power from nearby bases.

If the President were to yield on

both points, the communists say, he could get the prisoners back.

Agree on only one point, and it is no deal.

Paris negotiator William PORTER has been getting his new instructions here from Secretary of State ROGERS. Yesterday and again today.

PORTER will be back in Paris for this Thursday's probably critical session.

## Capitol Hill Advance Reaction Favorable

CRONKITE: Advance reaction from Capitol Hill was favorable. Even among some critics of past VN policy.

ROGER MUDD: Initial reaction on the hill was almost euphoric. Senator Majority Leader MANSFIELD said if the offer were made it would end his fight with the Administration.

MANSFIELD: I would be delighted and I would like, if I may use the phrase which has been used by others in relation to this question to have the rug pulled out from under me.

MUDD: But as the day wore on, it turned out not many really knew what to expect.

Republican Leader SCOTT.

SCOTT: Well, I don't know. I know it is on foreign policy - I know it is important - the speculation as I have seen in the press - questions of Mr. ZIEGLER, for example would indicate that they expect it to be on VN at least in part.

And so, I suppose that is reasonable to expect.

George AIKEN of Vermont was asked if he knew of any new development that would produce such an offer from the President.

AIKEN: No. I don't know whether that is what he is going to spring on us tonight.

One of his surprises.

I don't know whether that is what he's calling the joint leadership down there for.

MUDD: Well, what is going on springing surprises on the senior Republican for?

SCOTT: Well, if the senior Republican don't know what is going on, the senior Republican don't tell

BALTIMORE SUN

26 January 1972 P1

Secret
talks
revealed

25

BY ARNOLD R. ISAACS

Washington Bureau of The Sun

Washington—Unveiling a secret diplomatic effort that dates back almost 2½ years. President Nixon announced last night that he has offered to remove all U.S. forces from Vietnam in six months in return for agreement on a peace package that includes a ceasefire throughout Indochina and the release of all prisoners of war.

The peace plan—the first ever made by the American government that would commit the U.S. to a definite deadline for total withdrawal—has been before the North Vietnamese in Paris since October 11, the President said, and has drawn no answer.

"It has not been rejected," "Mr. Nixon told a nationwide radio and television audience,

at it has been ignored." The proposal will be made in a public, formal fashion when the peace talks resume tomorrow.

## Elections in the South

Mr. Nixon's plan also contains a proposal for internationally supervised elections in South Vietnam in which all political forces, including the Viet Cong, could compete. He said that if agreement is reached, President Nugyen Van Thieu has agreed to step down a month before the election and turn over the government to a caretaker regime.

Mr. Nixon said the U.S. was willing to negotiate on the purely military issues—withdrawal, cease-fire and prisoner release—alone, leaving the political settlement up to the North and South Vietnamese. A White House official who met with reporters just before the President's speech said the U.S. had offered the entire package because the North Vietnamese had insisted in the secret negotiations that political and military solutions must be worked out together.

## The chief obstacle

The official said the chief obstacle to a settlement was

the People's Democratic Party. South Vietnam's future and not the possible terms for an American withdrawal or a ceasefire. He said that the North Vietnamese had not given an inch in their insistence that the war can end only after the Thieu government has been replaced.

"The North Vietnamese have insisted on a specific formula for the government structure," this source, whose comments reflect official White House policy. Presumably, this was the same formula they have advanced in public—a coalition regime from which members of the Thieu regime would be rigidly excluded.

The American position. Mr. Nixon declared in his speech, is that the U.S. will not "join our enemy to overthrow our ally." Even though Mr. Thieu has agreed to step down before the election, under the U.S. proposal he would be able to run for the presidency again.

Mr. Nixon said the American proposal was the culmination of secret negotiations that began August 4, 1969, when Henry A. Kissinger, his chief foreign affairs adviser, traveled to Paris to meet with North Vietnamese representatives.

Since then, the President continued, Dr. Kissinger has held 12 such secret meetings, all in Paris. On 7 of these trips he met with Le Duc Tho, a member of the North Vietnamese Politburo, and Xuan Thuy, the head of the North Vietnamese delegation to the peace talks. In the other 5 sessions, he met with Mr. Thuy alone.

## 9-month timetable

The U.S. first agreed to the concept of a definite deadline for total withdrawal in one of those meetings on May 31, 1971—eight months ago. Mr. Nixon stated. On August 16, he went on, the U.S. advanced a proposal for a nine-month timetable. And on October 11, through a "private communication," Mr. Nixon offered essentially the same plan that he announced last night and asked the North Vietnamese to meet with Dr. Kissinger again.

After agreeing to a meeting November 20, the North Vietnamese notified the U.S. three days before the meeting was to take place that Mr. Tho was ill. The U.S. asked for another date or a meeting with any other North Vietnamese leader. There was no reply. Mr. Nixon stated.

The President said he had decided to disclose the secret negotiations in hopes that the deadlock could be broken. The U.S. plan, he said, "can no longer be imposed."

A White House official, asked if the North Vietnamese government had been told that Mr. Nixon was going to reveal the secret talks, answered tartly that North Vietnam had not been notified, but "with no excessive amount of warning."

## Persuading the U.S. public

The President offered another reason for hitting the secretary at this point—the need to persuade the American public that its government was, in fact, doing everything possible to end the war.

While the secret meetings were under way, Mr. Nixon declared, the North Vietnamese had "publicly denounced us for not having responded" to the seven-point Viet Cong peace plan offered July 1—when, in fact, the Americans had responded.

They berated the Americans for refusing to set a withdrawal deadline—when a deadline was already on the table, Mr. Nixon asserted.

And, he added, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong "induced many Americans in the press and the Congress into echoing their propaganda—Americans who could not know they were being falsely used by the enemy to stir up divisiveness in this country."

This was clearly a reference to pressure from war critics— notably Senators George S. McGovern (D., S.D.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D., Mass.)—who have been urging the President to offer a final withdrawal date in return for the release of the U.S. prisoners.

In a passage suggesting his hopes that his disclosure will prove his critics wrong, Mr. Nixon said:

> "Some of our citizens have become accustomed to thinking that whatever our government says must be false, and whatever our enemies say must be true, as far as this war is concerned. The record, I have revealed tonight proves the contrary. We can now demonstrate publicly what we have long been demonstrating privately—that America has taken the initiative not only to end our participation in this war, but to end the war itself for all concerned."

At first glance, it seemed that the President's disclosure of the U.S. offer would further neutralize the war issue as the presidential election year progresses. By offering a definite timetable for withdrawal, Mr. Nixon had pre-empted one of the main planks in his critics' platform.

If the offer is accepted, Mr. Nixon may be able to bring home both the remaining troops there are now about 141,000, and the ceiling will be down to 691,000 by May 1—and the prisoners of war by election day. If it is rejected, North Vietnamese intransigence will doubtless appear to many Americans as the principal reason.

North Vietnam has listed 343 American servicemen as prisoners of war, and in addition, letters have been received in the U.S. from 18 others held by Communists in South Vietnam. As of January 20, the Pentagon listed 482 "believed captured" and another 1,010 missing in action, of whom some may be prisoners.

## Vietnamization called success

Although the focus of his speech was on the peace plan and the secret negotiations leading up to it, Mr. Nixon also, in what was practically a throwaway line, declared that the policy of Vietnamization "has been successful."

This judgment had been previously suggested indirectly but never before was stated explicitly. It means Mr. Nixon no longer needs to insist that Americans must remain in Vietnam to help the South Vietnamese defend themselves, because in his view they can do so on their own if the fighting continues. Presumably, the President's verdict on the success of his policy of training and equipping the South Vietnamese is what enabled him to set, finally, a timetable for total U.S. withdrawal.

Along with Mr. Nixon's speech, the White House released last night the full text of the peace plan. The text is cumbersomely worded in parts, reflecting efforts to follow formulations originally proposed by the North Vietnamese in areas where the U.S. is accepting parts of the Communist package.

The Americans are dealing with two Communist offers—the seven-point Viet Cong plan offered in the public peace talks July 1, and a secret nine-point proposal made five days earlier in the private negotiations.

C73

25

NEW YORK TIMES

26 January 1978 El

REACTION IS MIXED

Backers of President
Praise His Offer—
Critics Skeptical

By JOHN W. FINNEY
Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25—
President Nixon's eight-point
peace proposal was applauded
tonight by Congressional sup-
porters of the Administration,
but was greeted with a mix-
ture of skepticism and surprise
by critics of the Vietnam War.

To the Administration's sup-
porters, the President's disclo-
sure of the secret negotiations
and the American offer was
taken as evidence that Mr.
Nixon had done everything
possible to achieve a negotiated
settlement of the war.

Among the critics there was
doubt that the President had
gone far enough or that his
proposal would be acceptable
to North Vietnam.

Senator John Sherman Coop-
er, Republican of Kentucky,
who in the past has teamed
with Senator Church in offer-
ing Vietnam withdrawal amend-
ments, described the President's
offer as "fair and just."

"It ought to be accepted but
I doubt that it will be," he
said. "If not accepted, I still
think we should move out."

Senator J. W. Fulbright, the
Chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee and one
of the harshest critics of the
Administration's Vietnam pol-
icies, said that the President
had offered what would be
considered in western eyes a
"fair and generous" proposal.

Sees a 'Sticking Point'

"But what looks generous to us may not look generous to North Vietnam," Senator Fulbright said. "We may have to do more" to get a favorable response from North Vietnam.

"The "sticking point," he said,
remains the question of whether
the United States is "willing
to get out and leave the Thieu
Government to its own devices."

From the initial Congress-
al reaction, it did not appear
that the President, in disclosing
his peace initiatives, would
achieve one of his stated goals
of unifying the American people

and the Congress behind his
position.

There were expressions of
support, such as from Senator
John Stennis, Chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Commit-
tee, and Representative F. Ed-
ward Hebert, chairman of the
House Armed Services Commit-
tee.

Senator Stennis said, "This
shows that the President has
repeatedly done all that he
could reasonably and honor-
ably do as the chief executive
of our nation."

Mr. Hebert said that: "to-
night in the cause of peace the
President had his finest hour."

"He demonstrated beyond
any doubt his sincerity of pur-
pose and his continuing effort
in spite of the efforts to chal-
lenge the fact that he had been
fighting the cause of peace to
bring about the end of the use-
less and tragic slaughter in
Vietnam," Mr. Hebert said.

Senator Hugh Scott, the Re-
publican leader, said the Presi-
dent's detailed accounting of
the secret negotiations "sup-
ports the wisdom of the Presi-
dent's push for peace' and
Representative Gerald R. Ford,
the House Republican Trade-
 said, "the President has set the
record straight by revealing his
efforts to end the war through
broad and comprehensive ne-
gotiations."

Mr. Nixons critics admitted
they had been caught off bal-
ance by the disclosure of the
secret peace negotiations—a
fact that contributed to their
generally cautious reaction.
Mingled among some words of
praise for the President by the
Vietnam doves was uncertainty
as to exactly what the Presi-
dent had and was proposing
and skepticism that his peace
proposals were sufficient to
end the war.

Expressing disappointment,
Senator Frank Church of Idaho,
a Democratic dove on the For-
ign Relations Committee, said
that "had President Nixon con-
fined his offer to a withdrawal
of the remaining forces in ex-
change for our prisoners of
war, I would have applauded
him without reservation."

"However," Mr. Church went on, "he added another condition which would require the north to stop fighting and settle instead for elections in the South under a caretaker Government. This has been suggested before and rejected. Nevertheless, I hope Hanoi will not turn down the President's offer out of hand but will regard it as a starting point for serious negotiations."

Senator Phillip A. Hart of
Michigan, a Democratic dove,
interpreted the President's offer
as embracing the concept of
the amendment offered by Sen-
ator Mike Mansfield, the Demo-
cratic leader, calling for with-
drawal of all American forces,

in six months, contingent only
upon release of American pris-
oners of war. "It's not the
Mansfield Amendment, but it
certainly adopts the underly-
ing elements of it," he said.

Senator Mansfield, who ear-
lier in the day had persuaded
the Caucus of Democratic Sen-
ators to embrace once again his
amendment, was not immedi-
ately available for comment.

Senator Alan Cranston, Dem-
ocrat of California, suggested
the President had still not met
the terms of the Mansfield
Amendment. The issue remains,
he said, of "How long do we
want to stay in Vietnam and
fight and die there until Viet-
nam is able to defend itself?"

Senator Jacob R. Javits, Re-
publican of New York, said that
while the Nixon offer was "fair,
obviously its being made public
indicates that there is little
hope for near-term acceptance."

"The question therefore re-
verts to the U.S. interest and
that, I feel, still requires com-
plete U.S. withdrawal and the
declaration of our willingness
to support financial aid with
material, continued, effective
Vietnam resistance as well as
reconstruction," he said.

Senator George McGovern of
South Dakota, campaigning in
Chicago for the Presidential
nomination, expressed doubt
that the President's offer would
be accepted, primarily because
Mr. Nixon offered to set a date
rather than fixed a date for
withdrawal.

Senator McGovern also ac-

cused the President of contrib-
uting to a "credibility gap" with
his secret negotiations.

"At the same time Mr. Nixon
was bitterly opposed to the Mc-
Govern-Hatfield proposal to end
the war, he was at the very
same time offering it to the oth-
er side," the Senator said. "This
leads to a credibility gap, both
with the United States Senate
and the other side."

Senator Henry M. Jackson of
Washington, another contender
for the Democratic Presidential
nomination, said Mr. Nixon "re-
vealed a course of negotiation
and action close to what I
have been emphasizing — the
release of our prisoners based
on an agreement for withdraw-
al of all our forces and a stand-
still cease-fire."

Gov. George Wallace of Ala-
bama said the President had
made a "generous offer" but
"since the North iVietnamese
did not respond in private talks,
I doubt if they will make any
positive reaction to an offer
made publicly to the American
people."

Representative John M. Ash-
brook of Ohio, a conservative
challenging Mr. Nixon for the
Republican nomination, com-
mended the President "for re-
fusing to bow to pressures
from the left at home for un-
conditional withdrawal." But he
expressed concern that the
prisoners were being used as
negotiating "pawns" by the
North Vietnamese and caution-
ed against "withdrawing our
troops simply on the basis of a
negotiated promise."

CJY3

24

CBS EVENING NEWS CBS-TV 7:00

JAN. 26, 1972
Communists Call Nixon
Statement Propaganda

WALTER CRONKITE: Since President Nixon revealed last night his latest eight-point proposal for peace in IC, the reaction has been swift, but not altogether heartening.

The communists, for instance, dismissed Mr. Nixon's statement as propaganda and said it was perfidious. Further, they chided the President for allegedly breaking a promise to keep the secret talks secret.

But the communists stopped short of actually rejecting the proposal.

In Washington presidential advisor Henry Kissinger discussed the plan and his many secret trips to Paris to negotiate with the communists.

DAN RATHER: The White House East Room was turned into a stage setting for Dr. Kissinger's performance. Besides starring in the Nixon Administration as Secretary of State without title, swinging bachelor ladies' man, and as the President's secret negotiator, Kissinger is widely acclaimed as a masterful explainer of White House policy.

Some call him a briefer, others a propaganda artist, all agree he is skillful. But Kissinger usually does his explaining on a don't quote me, don't use my name basis.

Today, as part of a carefully orchestrated White House effort to enlist support for the President's war policy and peace proposals, Kissinger made one of his rare on the record appearances. No sound cameras or recording equipment were allowed, but silent filming was, and reporters were free to quote Kissinger directly by name.

These were his major points.

The White House secretly offered, August 1, 1972, as a fixed final withdrawal date in exchange for a cease-fire and return of prisoners. Hanoi refused. The United States was asked to overthrow or change the present Saigon Government as a prelude to any settlement. Stopping all military and economic aid to Saigon also was demanded.

Kissinger negotiated secretly in Paris 12 times over a 30-month period. Ten of those times he traveled cloak and dagger style aboard military

planes in and out of little used airports with the help of French agents.

The main thrust of Kissinger's remarks today was that the communists have been saying some things in secret, opposite things in public still trying to win the war militarily and politically, by confusing dividing and finally wearing down the American public.

Kissinger and everyone else at the White House flatly denies that President Nixon has offered peace terms he knew in advance the communists could not and would not accept. The record, Kissinger argues, clearly shows otherwise.

CRONKITE: Our State Department correspondent, Marvin Kalb, has studied the President's latest proposal, and weighed against past plans. Here is his report.

MARVIN KALB: The experts here agree the basic framework of the President's eight-point plan is not new, though there are some new and meaningful elements.

Point one now promises total with drawal within six months after a deal is reached. A secret offer last August 16, pledged American withdrawal within nine months. American prisoners must also be released within six months.

Point three meets one major communist demand at least half-way. President Thieu would resign one month before free elections, run by an independent commission which would include communists. Hanoi remains highly suspicious of this concession.

Point five, rather vaguely, requires Hanoi to pull its troops out of SVN, Laos and Cambodia. No one here really thinks Hanoi will agree.

Point six focuses on a cease-fire and a stop to infiltration. Contrary to all reports Dr. Kissinger asserts Hanoi is ready to buy a standstill cease-fire.

Not among the eight points is a private presidential commitment to give $7.5 billion to the reconstruction of IC over a five-year period; $2.5 billion to NVN alone, a form of reparations.

Finally, nowhere does the President mention the continuing use of American air power throughout IC. From carriers off the Vietnamese coast and from bases in nearby Thailand.

27

## Political Reaction to Nixon's Speech

**CHANCELLOR:** There was considerable political reaction today to the President's speech.

Republican Senator Hugh Scott said the speech was an answer to reasonable people who had reasonable doubts about the negotiations.

Senator Mike Mansfield, the Democratic leader, said the President's speech was a long step forward in laying the cards on the table.

Senator Edward Kennedy said of the President's eight-point plan, that there should be a one-point plan, to withdraw all American troops contingent only on the release of the prisoners.

And some of the candidates for president had their comments.

**SENATOR MCGOVERN:** What the President is proposing is a complicated eight-point proposition, much of which represents warmed over details from previous offers that have been rejected by the other side. I'm not very hopeful that the Nixon formula will move us any closer to a negotiated settlement.

**REPORTER:** Senator, what would you do if you were president?

**SEN. MCGOVERN:** I would accept the offer that the other side has made, in which they said if we would announce now a definite timetable for the withdrawal of all American military operations, in the air and on the ground, no preconditions, just announce a deadline, that that would then open the way for negotiations on the release of prisoners and a cease fire.

I would announce that deadline without further delay.

**SEN. HUMPHREY:** It seems to me that the better way, and I'm not trying to be a carping critic, because I'm very pleased that the President has taken the steps that he has outlined to the public, it seems to me that the better way would be to set the time for withdrawal, to take the initiative on our part, and of course, at the same time, tie the subject of the release of the prisoners and the MIA's, the missing in action, and set up the machinery to identify the release or to supervise it. It seems to me that's the way to end the war.

**SEN. MUSKIE:** To propose political initiative aimed at new presidential elections in SVN under international

supervision, coupled with President Thieu's offer to resign and that of his Vice President to resign a month before the elections is a new element

On the military side the one speaking point in the proposal is that it would call for a cease fire throughout IC, not simply in VN, that is it would call for a cease fire in Cambodia and Laos as well as VN. This could well lead, I think, to stalemate in Paris, and to a prolongation of the war.

**CHANCELLOR:** Clark Clifford, who used to be Secretary of Defense, and who was one of Muskie's advisors, today reinforced this point about a cease fire.

Clifford said that in all his dealings with the NVNese, they have always been dead set against any deal involving a cease fire, and Clifford says the President knew that

There was also comment today from Republican Congressman Paul McCloskey of California, who is running in the New Hampshire Primary against Mr. Nixon's VN policy.

**CONGRESSMAN PAUL MCCLOSKEY:** I didn't think he said too much that was new, except to disclose the secret negotiation efforts. I think that as long as the President continues to insist on the survival of the Government in SVN that the other side isn't going to be impelled to negotiate.

I think that the purpose of the speech is more here for domestic consumption than there's any hope of expectancy that it was going to be answered affirmatively.

**CHANCELLOR:** It's being said at the White House that the President decided to disclose his own secrets because of domestic divisions in the country. Mr. Nixon has been called his own Daniel Ellsberg.

Domestic divisions on the war, however, are at a low point, and some cynics have suggested that the President's dramatic disclosure had something to do with all those politicians running against him.

Jan. 29

1972

John

Chancellor

WASHINGTON POST 27 JANUARY 1972

Vietnam: The Same Old Shell Game

Those who value from over a decade may find
a political triumph in Mr. Nixon's new "Plan for
Peace" in Indochina—a veritable political master-
stroke, courtesy of nationwide TV. Senator Mans-
field, for example, hailed it as a long step forward:
Senator Music and Humphrey welcomed it as a
new inducive. The President himself called it
generous," as if generosity had any place in our
dealings with a ruthless and relentless adversary.
Republican sympathizers are delighting in the way
the rug is supposed to have been pulled from under
those who have been advocating a "date certain"
for our withdrawal in exchange for our prisoners of
war—on the theory that this is what the President
has been secretly offering. This is what was meant
to dazzle us—along with the drama of Dr. Kissinger's
thirteen transatlantic trips, the secret dealings,
the surprise. We are meant to believe, in
short, that the President has "gone the extra mile
for peace" and that whatever happens next—continued
impasse, a new Communist offensive, an increase
in American casualties, a prolonged, open-ended
war—is not his fault.

Well you can make the argument that it is
Hanoi's fault, or even that the whole war is Hanoi's,
or Peking's or Moscow's) fault, and not gain much
by doing so. You can prove, as Mr. Nixon did, that
the enemy has been duplicitous, but that is hardly
a revelation. You can assert that Mr. Nixon has
tried what some of his critics have long been urging
him to try, but even if that were so, (which it
isn't) it doesn't help much when it doesn't work—
except perhaps at home, politically for a time. The
fact of the matter is, of course, that there is
drama in the unveiling of a secret peace initiative
and a little vindication, perhaps, and not much
else—not even, in this case, much surprise.

Last November 12, just about the time when Dr. Kissinger was busiest on his Parisian rounds, the President was asked if he had any reason for encouragement concerning prospects for release of our POWs, and he replied: "No reason for encouragement that I can talk about publicly. I can say, however, that we are pursuing this subject, as I have indicated on several occasions in a number of channels..." So the likelihood of private dealings was always there and the real surprise is in the terms the President was offering "the other side"; there is, in fact, no better way to measure the significance of the President's hitherto secret "plan for peace" than by comparing it with one he was proposing publicly in October, 1970—when there were 384,000 American troops in South Vietnam. At that time, Mr. Nixon announced that the United States would offer in Paris a plan for:

"An agreed timetable for complete withdrawal as part of an over-all settlement";

An immediate and unconditional release of all
prisoners of war held by both sides;

A fair political solution, which would "reflect
the existing relationship of political forces" in
South Vietnam. The U.S., he said, would abide

by the outcome (whether one reached by negotia-
tion or election, he did not specify) and he added
that "we know that when the conflict ends, the
other side will be there, and the only kind of
settlement that will endure is one both sides
have an interest in preserving (in other words,
an eventual piece of the act on in Saigon was
held out to the Communists).

An Indochina peace conference, to negotiate
a wider settlement which would be guided by the
terms of the Geneva Accords of 1954 (Vietnam)
and 1962 (Laos).

A cease fire, to be internationally supervised.

That, then, was the Nixon peace plan fifteen
months ago, publicly put forth in Paris. What is
essentially new or different about the one Dr. Kiss-
singer has been pushing secretly? Essentially nothing,
except that elaborate election machinery has
been added—an electoral process made in America.
rooted in democratic institutions which are alien
to the Vietnamese, and one to which Hanoi has
been consistently hostile. That, and an eye-catching
deadline of six months or U.S. troop withdrawal,
which is about as uncertain a "date certain"
as could be devised, depending as it does on
an agreement not just on prisoner exchange, as
the President's leading critics have proposed, but
on working out the incredibly difficult details of
a cease fire and an election procedure.

This, we are asked to believe, is a new peace
plan whose unilateral, public disclosure is likely
to break the impasse with Hanoi. This, we are told,
is progress, when in fact it is more of the same
old shell game. It may work, for a time, for as this
game has been played with the Vietnam war over
the years, the hand of a government in possession
of a secret and in command of prime time has
proved more often than not to be quicker than
the eye. But the real news here is not of a new
peace plan, or even of an earnest secret initiative.
What the President told us Tuesday night was
nothing more or less than that he and Dr. Kissinger
have been privately pressing upon Hanoi a rather
shopworn peace plan, only slightly refurbished, and
that over a period of 30 months they have been
had; he is telling us that he still wants it done the
American way and that the North Vietnamese are
still not buying it; he is telling us that negotiation
isn't working, and that this, by his own admission
leaves the alternative of "Vietnamization" which he
is frank enough to describe as the "long voyage
home."

So unless there is a lot the President isn't telling us, we are just where we were before we learned of Dr. Kissinger's secret travel: still persistent on having it our way: still counting on the North Vietnamese to abandon the goals of some forty years of fighting; still unwilling to act upon the President's own, public estimates (also offered in Oct., 1970) that the "South Vietnamese have gained the capability to handle the situation"—and with less and less to offer, as our ground forces shrink, in exchange for our prisoners of war.

NEW YORK TIMES

27 JANUARY 1972

Openings Toward Peace

The emphasis Presidential assistant Henry Kissinger has placed on the flexibility of the Administration's new Vietnam peace proposals strengthens hope that they may yet provide a key to ending this tragic conflict, despite their initial unacceptability to North Vietnam and the Vietcong.

There are obvious shortcomings in the plan revealed by President Nixon, and the American leverage for any kind of negotiated political settlement has been measurably reduced by Vietnamization and its abysmal failure to bring closer a cessation of hostilities. But neither factor should overshadow the very significant advances the revised proposals represent over any previous American position — especially since they are offered as a jumping-off point for what could become the first real bargaining since the frustrating negotiations at Paris began three years ago.

The North Vietnamese have criticized the President for disclosing that secret talks took place between Dr. Kissinger and top Communist diplomats in Paris over an extended period—talks which were conducted at a higher level and with greater intensity than most Americans even suspected. But this disclosure could have a positive impact on the prospects for a negotiated settlement. It reveals the President's sensitivity to public criticism of his peace posture and gives Americans for the first time an opportunity to judge their Government's real position and perhaps to effect changes.

One opening that invites further discussion is the President's suggestion that the military issues in his proposal could be separated from the more difficult political questions. This approach has its pitfalls. Mr. Nixon did not offer a simple withdrawal of American forces in return for prisoners of war as Senator Mansfield and others have urged.

The President tied withdrawal also to acceptance of a cease-fire throughout Indochina, something the Communists oppose because under existing conditions a total cease-fire would tend to solidify Saigon's political control over most of the South Vietnamese population. But the Communists themselves have proposed a partial cease-fire between their troops and withdrawing allied forces. The cease-fire issue could be a subject for fruitful negotiations.

Even the wide gap between the two sides on political questions has been narrowed. The President made a major concession: a long-standing Communist demands when he offered the resignations of President Thieu and Vice President Hoang one month before proposed new supervised elections. The other side is understandably unhappy about this arrangement as presented, especially Mr. Nixon's suggestion that the chairman of the Senate, a Thieu man, should head a caretaker government.

But the timing of Mr. Thieu's departure from government is surely negotiable. And it is not inconceivable that the functions of the broadly based electoral commission proposed by Mr. Nixon could be enlarged to approach the wider role assigned to a "government of national concord" in the Vietcong plan.

In light of the frightful losses that all sides have already suffered and of the imminent threat of a new escalation of the fighting, it would be the height of irresponsibility to write off the new Nixon proposals before these and other possible openings toward peace have been thoroughly explored.

NEW YORK TIMES 27 JANUARY 1972

CY2

In Washington, Questions on What's Next

By TERENCE SMITH

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 —
parent failure of Presi-
ors new peace pro-
break the deadlock in
P. R. raises the question,
What comes next in the Vic-
nam conflict.

If the negotiations cannot
succeed, what alternatives are
available to the President and
to North Vietnam?
What are the
News
implications for
Analysis
American military
activity in Indo-
China? These and
other morning-after ques-
tions were being asked here
today in the wake of the Presi-
dent's announcement and his
dramatic disclosure of nearly
30 months of secret diplomatic
efforts to end the war.

At a news conference today Henry A. Kissinger, the President's adviser on national security, was reluctant to speculate on the future. All he would do was to express the hope — as the officials of two Administrations have done before him—that Hanoi would gradually wean of its strategy and accept a compromise.

Once the North Vietnamese are persuaded that the United States will not overthrow the Saigon Government, he said, "They may settle for a political loss which gives them less 100 per cent guarantee" — will defeat the South Vietnamese politically but "a fair crack" at it.

If that does not happen, the
President pledged Tuesday
night, the alternative is a con-
clusion of the Vietnamization
program. The American troop
withdrawals will go on, but so,
Mr. Nixon made clear, will the
periodic bombing of North Viet-
nam and air strikes in Laos and
Cambodia.

Long Stay for Airmen

Thus the "Vietnamization"
alternative means that Ameri-
can air and naval units will
have to remain in Indochina in-
definitely. It also means that
the fighting in Laos and Cam-
Bodia can be expected to con-
tinue until some negotiating
alternative is agreed upon.

Although the President's in-
itiative appears to have failed
to break the Paris deadlock, it
has put him in a strong position
to strike back hard at any
crowd offensive in the next
few weeks. Having put forward
a comprehensive peace proposal,
the theory here goes, he has
created a climate at home and
around the world that will induce
the Vietnamese to accept any
North Vietnam plan at the
end of the mid-February Tet.

Kissinger concluded to
at the Administration
level that the passivity of
the fighting in the next
few weeks when it decided on
its initiative. The new pro-
posals he said constitute an
attempt to get the North Viet-
nam government to accept it
not as an alternative, but get the war
over.

The following are some of the
lines that have been drawn
between the two sides.
What is the difference?

The lines are drawn at
the very point where they
were drawn in the first place.

In addition to more singing the President's options on the battlefield, the new peace proposals have set the stage for his trip to China.

Many diplomats have felt
for some time that Mr. Nixon
could not expect a warm re-
ception in Peking unless he
made a public offer to with-
draw all American troops from
Indochina. Regardless of
whether such an offer was ac-

cepted, it would serve to cre-
ate the proper atmosphere for
successful discussions with the
Chinese.

That much he has accom-
plished with his initiative, the
diplomats feel, and the Chinese
can meet with him without
fear of being accused of be-
traying their Indochinese allies.
At the same time, however,

Hanoi's prompt denunciation of
the President's proposals has
underscored the fact that he
cannot hope to find the solution
to his Vietnam problem in
Peking. Mr. Kissinger stressed
the point to newsmen today,
saying as he has before: "We
expect to settle this war with
Hanoi, not with Moscow and
not with Peking."

WASHINGTON STAR

27 JANUARY 1972

PE-4

Senators
Rap Nixon
Peace Bid

By CARL P. LEUBSDORF

Associated Press

Senate war critics say they
will continue to push for a
fixed date for total U.S. with-
drawal from Indochina despite
President Nixon's effort to de-
fuse the war as a political is-
sue.

Taken somewhat by surprise
by Nixon's disclosure Tuesday
night of secret U.S.-North Vi-
etnamese peace efforts, many
senators predicted the Presi-
dent's speech will have a fa-
vorable political impact, at
least over the short run.

But, in a series of state-
ments and interviews some
stressed that Nixon's plan
does not set a specific date for
U.S. withdrawal and risks
North Vietnamese rejection by
linking the U.S. pullout to a
cease-fire throughout
Indochina and to other condi-
tions.

"North Vietnam is not likely
to accept his proposals, and I
do not recommend our people
place too much hope in this,
said Sen. Allen Ellender,
D-La.

Ellender, who has opposed
congressional efforts to set a
fixed withdrawal date, thus
agreed with Chairman J. W.
Fulbright, D-Ark., of the For-
eign Relations Committee, a
supporter of a fixed date.

Fulbright's comment: "I
don't think we're going to get
anywhere under this formu-
la."

Sen. Harold E. Hughes,
D-Iowa, said in an interview
that "when I first heard it on
the news, it sounded pretty
good. On close inspection, it
didn't turn out that way."

Sen. Edward W. Brooke,
R-Mass., who had predicted a
major administration move
some 24 hours before Nixon
spoke, said yesterday he fore-
sees "a growing movement
here in Congress to get a date-
certain" unless the President
takes further peace steps, pos-
sibly after his later-February
visit to Mainland China.

Sen. Clifford P. Case,
R-N.J., said establishment of a
fixed U.S. withdrawal date is
"the only way in which there
might be a chance that South
Vietname would shape up for
its own defense."

Cranston Criticized

Senate Democratic Leader
Mike Mansfield, while praising
Nixon's initiative as "a long
step forward," emphasized he
still plans to offer at the prop-
er time his amendment calling
for total U.S. withdrawal in six
months if American prisoners
are freed.

Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif.,
drew sharp Republican criti-
cism when he told a virtually
deserted Senate chamber late

yesterday that the Nixon pro-
posal is "totaly unrealistic"
and could be designed to make
a possible U.S. escalation in
future weeks "more accepta-
ble if and when it comes."

Sen. Robert P. Griffin
R-Mich., assistant GOP lead-
er, called Cranston's state-
ments "disappointing and
shocking" and said it would be
better for critics to stay silent
if they couldn't back the Presi-
dent.

On both sides of the aisle,
indications were that senators
who have backed the previous
Mansfield amendments, which
passed the Senate but were
blocked by the House, will sup-
port future moves.

Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey,
D-Minn., said in a statement
that Nixon's plan lacks a pre-
cise date, which Humphrey
said "has been the basis of the
Mansfield amendment which I
have consistently supported
and which the majority of the
Senate and the American pub-
lic has accepted."

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy,
D-Mass., said that, instead of
President Nixon's eight-point
plan, "all we need is a one-
point plan — complete with-
drawal of American ground,
sea and air forces by a date
certain in exchange for a re-
turn for our prisoners."

"So long as we try to condi-
tion our withdrawal on things
like free elections, a cease-fire
or any of the other trappings
disclosed last night, reasona-
ble as that may seem, we shall
be pursuing the same blind
alley in public negotiations
that we have followed with
such futility in private," Ken-
ney said.

May Help Him at Home
If Not Southeast Asia

Hanoi's Rejection Stresses
Determination to Prevail;
In U.S., Critics Are Muted

'Diplomatic Acupuncture'?

By ROBERT KEATLEY

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WASHINGTON — President Nixon's newly-revealed stab at secret diplomacy may not end the Indochinese war, but it does clarify the basic issue: While the Americans seek political compromise, the North Vietnamese are bent only on gaining political control of South Vietnam.

And a dozen secret rendezvous in Parisian hideaways by emissary Henry Kissinger haven't successfully wooed Hanoi from that adamant position. Anything less than an assured take-over of the South Vietnamese government, it appears, is considered by North Vietnam as a betrayal of its honor—something too dear to be bargained away for temporary political or military gains that don't guarantee eventual success.

That is because North Vietnam hasn't yet deviated from the cause that prompted it to begin its "war of liberation" decades ago: to drive out all foreign soldiers and unify the nation under control of the Worker's (Communist) Party of Vietnam. Anything less remains unacceptable.

This was indicated yesterday when the National Liberation Front, or Vietcong, delegation in Paris dismissed the President's eight-point proposal as mere "electoral propaganda" to "fool public opinion." Soon afterward, the Hanoi delegation there made its objections more precise: It said the plan wouldn't stop Vietnamization, or U.S. military aid to the Saigon government, and would maintain the "puppet regime" of President Nguyen Van Thieu in office. Instead, North Vietnam wants an end to all American aid to Saigon and explicitly wants the U.S. to overthrow the Thieu government.

Seeking Direct Action

"They have asked us... to change the government directly, generously leaving the method to us," Mr. Kissinger said yesterday. Yielding to that demand, he asserted, is "something about which there can be no question."

This morning Hanoi may explain itself in more detail; the 142nd session of the Paris peace talks is scheduled, and the North Vietnamese side, if it appears at all, will be under pressure to respond more officially to the proposal it has had secretly (in most respects) since Oct. 11. Some analysts speculate, though, that Hanoi's negotiators may choose to take a recess until the politburo back. home comes up with a detailed reply.

Diplomacy aside, Mr. Nixon's surprise unseating Tuesday night of 30 months of secret deals with the enemy has apparently gained him some immediate political points here at home. Although few of his congressional critics have deeply impressed, some concede that the President's announcement may tend to shove the war into the background as a campaign issue at least for the time being.

On the GOP side, Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott says Mr. Nixon has gone to "superior American lengths" to end the war and has given an "answer to reasonable people who have rea-

policy. Among the Democrats, presidential hopeful Hubert Humphrey has declined to attack the President, saying, "I'm not looking for a fight; I'm looking for peace." Even the most dovish of the Democratic aspirants, Sen. George McGovern, has conceded Mr. Nixon "a clever political performance."

Yet the President's political gains could prove only passing—for the war almost certainly won't have gone away by the time the Nixon proposals have faded from the front pages. In fact, the administration still expects some major enemy attacks during the coming month, targeted largely against the remaining U.S. forces in South Vietnam.

More Pullout Demands?

Although this week's announcement may undercut their political impact in the U.S., one result of fresh American casualties could still be more congressional cries for a pullout, no matter what the consequences in Indochina. Even without further U.S. casualties, continued bombing could keep the war issue alive right up to election day. Such longtime doves as Sens. McGovern and William Fulbright will continue to argue that the U.S. has no interests that justify continued involvement in the war under any terms.

Blunting such criticisms, in fact, is one reason for the Nixon TV talk this week. By showing his political flexibility, the President hopes to forestall criticism of his politics if the enemy succeeds in taking a major town or two next month, during an expected offensive. The real Hanoi goal is to rouse American doves, the administration argues, not to seize and hold territory in South Vietnam.

"Hanoi wants to strike at what they consider our weakest point and force a settlement on their terms," a senior U.S. official says. "It's a sophisticated effort to exploit the differences between the legislative and executive branches and to revive congressional fears about whether the war is really winding down and about how deep the American commitments in Indochina really go."

"It's diplomatic acupuncture—sticking the needle in the right spot."

Reasons to Fight, Not Talk

The President obviously hopes lifting the security veil will keep him from succumbing to that particular treatment. However, from Hanoi's point of view some other trends are under way that give it reason to fight on, rather than to talk seriously about compromise.

For example, it's possible that Hanoi sincerely believes it is winning the war, some battlefield appearances to the contrary. A major reason for this belief would be that the Americans are withdrawing from South Vietnam; the North Vietnamese attribute the pullout to U.S. weakness, not to new South Vietnamese strength. The U.S. has been "forced to withdraw," Hanoi claims. "The balance of forces between the South Vietnamese people and armed forces (Vietcong) and the enemy (Saigon and U.S. forces) is tipping more and more in our favor and to the detriment of the enemy," a recent Hanoi broadcast contended.

The reasoning is this: Hanoi's forces withstood all that Saigon could offer when it haddion some 540,000 Americans to give it extra fire-control it seeks.

But the initial reaction of Communist leaders indicates that prolonged war lies ahead unless the U.S. evicts the Thieu government" gives power to the National Liberation without reservation.

For in Hanoi's stated opinion, the U.S. effort to prevent this from happening is doomed. As a recent trend it warned: "Let Nixon, the White House, be careful not to plunge the Vietnam war into a back wall. The feel it hope of bombing North Vietnam back to the Stone Age has failed completely."

One American in North Vietnam says: "Why should they confuse me? Instead, they will just wait."

Most U.S. officials don't agree with Hanoi's analysis, of course. But they stress that the North Vietnamese, who desperately want to believe that victory lies ahead, can find evidence to convince themselves that their course is correct if only their people will make more sacrifices. "Advance! Total victory certainly belongs to us," Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap recently told something called the "Traditional 'Courageously Die' so the Fatherland May 'vive' Congress" in Hanoi.

Besides doubts about Saigon's army, it believes that the Thieu government is far weaker than its American friends claim. Saigon's pacification program, however effective now, is only a temporary stumbling block, in the North Vietnamese view. "They think they can reassert themselves next year," analysts note.

On grounds as much ideological as factual, North Vietnam contends that South Vietnam's general population is actively opposed to President Thieu's government and, when the right moment comes, will rise against it—probably some time after the U.S. is gone. Whether this is true, Hanoi apparently bases its policy on such beliefs.

Besides detecting Saigon's alleged weaknesses, the North Vietnamese question America's ability to remedy or offset them. The recent U.S. air raids on North Vietnam (which even the Pentagon concedes didn't hit many important targets) didn't impress Hanoi at all. "The awesome might of the U.S. Air Force has increasingly lost its efficacy," a Communist commentator said derisively.

No "Excessive Trust"

This trend will continue. Hanoi analysts state, as more American forces are withdrawn, or "driven out" as they prefer to describe it. With few or no U.S. combat units left, a smaller air force on hard and congressional restrictions on the U.S. war role. North Vietnamese leaders apparently believe the force face is growing less easy, despite American aid to Saigon.

Another factor in Hanoi's stiff stance is the nature of North Vietnamese leadership. The aging members of its politburo have spent their entire adult lives fighting what they consider foreign occupiers—French, Japanese and American. Convinced that their cause is right, they deeply distrust all outsiders who try to preach compromise. To many of these leaders, the 1954 Geneva agreement on Indochina was a double cross: they expected to unify Vietnam on their terms and instead got possibly permanent division of their nation. They don't want to repeat that experience with another political compromise.

"... The Vietnam did not survive 2,000 years under foreign pressure by developing qualities of excessive trust in foreigners," Mr. Kissinger said yesterday.

A North Vietnamese policy change is theoretically possible, of course, however unlikely it now appears. Perhaps Hanoi's private assessment of the war has little relation to its associated statements on the subject. Perhaps a major split in the politburo, long rumored but never proven, could force a switch to serious political talks. Perhaps Hanoi will decide that Mr. Nixon's offer, which includes a new election in the South, dots up the political control it seeks.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR 27 JANUARY 1972

CVD

The peace plan, on the ground ...

The best way to get at the meaning of President Nixon's peace proposals is to be exactly what would be happen- ing in Southeast Asia if Hanoi had agreed to his terms when proposed in October and had signed an agreement in November or December to carry out the terms.

A cease-fire would have gone into effect from the day the agreement was signed and all movements of troops down the Ho Chi Minh trails would have stopped.

At the present moment American ground forces would continue to embark for home in complete security. There would be no threat either to their well being or their convenience. More important to those around them would be the fact that the armed forces of South Vietnam would be in undisputed and secure control of the whole of the territory of South Vietnam. The present threat of an impending military attack on them—a "second Tet"—would no longer exist.

President Thieu of South Vietnam would be in the process of preparing for a special presidential election. He could prepare at leisure because he would set the date. True, he would have to resign and take his chances with competitors from a month before voting day. But since he would have been in control until the last month he would enjoy reasonable prospects of success.

In this interim period of time the soldiers in Hanoi's prison camps would come out and come home.

At the end of the six months of this interim period all American ground troops would have left South Vietnam. But American "advisers" would still be attached to units of the South Vietnam Army. The flow of American weapons and other supplies would be continuing for that Army. Offshore in the South China Sea the big attack carriers of the U.S. Sixth Fleet would be patrolling, watchfully. And the B-52's on Guam and in Thailand would be ready for "protective reaction" should anything begin moving down the Ho Chi Minh trails.

Thus the American political conventions would take place at a time when the prisoners would all have been released, the ground troops would all be home. The shooting would have stopped. And Nguyen van Thieu would still be presiding over a South Vietnam still associated with the United States.

Meanwhile the "second Tet" offensive, for which Hanoi has been preparing for two years, would have been canceled. Hanoi would have abandoned its last best chance for that decisive military victory which has been its goal and its dream for the next 30 years.

There is every reason for Mr. Nixon to pursue his desirable (from the U.S. point of view) scenario. He has everything to gain by going to lose. But what is there in it for the North Vietnamese?

They would spare themselves the losses they will take in the offensive which is expected to burst on the South Vietnam Army at any moment. But combat losses

have not bothered them before. Their losses have been relatively slight since the first Tet. They have invested heavily in this offensive. And their chances of dealing a shattering defeat on South Vietnam are too good for the comfort of Saigon or Washington.

There isn't enough for Hanoi in the Nixon offer to make it worth giving up their offensive. If it works, they end up with what they want most, a victory. If it fails, they still have the prisoners for their opener in another round of negotiation.

... in American politics

As a political strategy, Mr. Nixon's peace proposal must go down in the history books as a modern classic. Though it does not seem destined to move Hanoi, the President's initiative reaffirms a commendable and continuing effort to find the road to a political settlement. The Vietnam war is, as perhaps no other war has ever been, a multidimensional exercise. The battlefields of Indo-China are only its take-off point. From there, it pulses out over the United States domestic political scene, and goes on to rattle the doors of major world capitals, including most significantly Moscow and Peking.

The brilliance of Mr. Nixon's move is that it operates to his benefit at all of these levels. To be fully appreciated, we need to understand that two entirely different and mutually incomprehensible value systems are at work here, Hanoi's and Washington's. Thus when Mr. Nixon proposes free elections, United States ground troop withdrawal, and a ceasefire, he can do so with ringing conviction, to Western ears, that he is making a perfectly fair offer, and even going the second mile.

From the North Vietnamese viewpoint, however, this seemingly fair offer can and, judging from its early response, does look to be another piece of Western propaganda, as explained above.

Mr. Nixon is, of course, perfectly aware of this value gap between his and Hanoi's position. He is perfectly aware of both the possibility and probability of rejection. But from the viewpoint of a majority of the American people, and indeed from most of the Western world, he has shown himself to have been hard at work trying to negotiate a peace with Hanoi, and that within the context of supersecret diplomacy.

For his Democratic opponents who have charged him with prolonging the war, his revelation of a 30-month, 12-session peace-making effort utterly demolishes that particular political issue. Senator Muskie immediately perceived this, as reflected in his approving comments afterward. Senator McGovern, on the other hand, by choosing to cavil with the President's proposal, probably lost political ground.

As for Peking and Moscow, they of course are playing a different game for different reasons than Hanoi. While each would clearly love to see the United States humiliated in Indo-China, neither has a

major strategic interest in how that war is settled. Each does have a major interest in arriving at détente with the United States. If Hanoi rejects the President's plan out of hand, it gives them an excuse for pursuing closer relations with Washington, while giving them insurance against criticism from their own anti-American hawks at home.

As Mr. Nixon travels to Peking and Moscow in the coming months, he goes from a position of strength, having proven himself a political strategist of virtuoso caliber. It is a quality that the men in the Kremlin and in the Forbidden City will be inclined to treat with respect.

... in diplomacy

It was comforting to learn from President Nixon's peace proposals that secret diplomacy is still possible even in this day of instant communication and in a society as open as that of the United States.

For presidential adviser Henry Kissinger to travel undetected between Washington and Paris for a dozen meetings with the North Vietnamese was in itself a remarkable achievement. Here was something even a Jack Anderson didn't get wind of. Nor did any of the astute news hawks who have been watching the peace talks in Paris for months for any hint of private meetings that might portend a breakthrough in the negotiating stalemate. President Nixon rightly paid tribute to President Pompidou of France for his part in arranging the Kissinger talks and for keeping the secret.

In this case the attempt to end the war through secret negotiations did not pay off. But of course the President was right to try. The attempt had to be made. There may still come a time when Hanoi will be ready to parley, and if so there is a greater chance of negotiations succeeding through private diplomacy than at the formal sessions of the Paris talks which have devolved into nothing more than a propaganda roundabout.

34

NEW YORK TIMES 30 JAN 72
The Peace Plan (31)

President Nixon's peace plan, as revealed to the world in general and to the American electorate in particular last Tuesday night in his own special brand of TV specific, does represent a significant advance of the American position in the complex negotiating effort to bring an end to the Vietnam war. While Mr. Nixon's dramatic announcement may indeed have been timed to soften up American and world opinion for a massive renewal of aerial bombing in response to the anticipated major Tet offensive on the part of Hanoi, the fact remains that the proposals are substantial enough, and are flexible enough, to warrant more serious exploration from the naturally suspicious enemy than has yet been publicly evidenced.

Mr. Nixon's plan is certainly not foolproof, and it is perfectly clear why the other side has not rushed to accept it. He has not abandoned the Thieu regime, as not only Hanoi but also many of Mr. Nixon's most earnest domestic critics insist must be done before peace can be expected in Indochina; but what he has proposed is a series of steps that could lead to a change of government in South Vietnam through a process in which all shades of opinion—Communist as well as anti-Communist—would have a part, while the fighting came to an end.

But on the political arrangements, the cease-fire, the withdrawal in exchange for prisoners of war, and other issues as well, the Nixon plan clearly leaves room for negotiation. Though the steady withdrawal of American ground troops and the continued failure of Vietnamization place the United States in an increasingly difficult bargaining position, it would be too much to expect Mr. Nixon to come forward with a plan immediately acceptable to Hanoi. What can be expected and now has at last been partially accomplished is a plan that should invite serious response from Hanoi in a forward-moving negotiation.

In fact, the secret Kissinger meetings last year in Paris with Le Due Thi, member of the North Vietnam Politburo, did much to advance these negotiations by undertaking detailed discussions on a political settlement in South Vietnam, something that Washington had not been willing to talk about with Hanoi alone in the past.

This does not mean that the Administration has given up its hope that the Communists ultimately will accept, or at least negotiate, the detailed terms of a political solution with the Saigon Government. Nor have the Communists backed away from their refusal to talk to the Saigon Government—even to negotiate its replacement. But, for the first time, there has been a serious exchange about the central issue of the conflict: How power is to be exercised in South Vietnam when the war ends.

Ostensibly, Washington and Hanoi are poles apart on this issue. But some progress has been made toward closing the gap. The critical divergence has to do with how South Vietnam shall be governed in the transitional period between an agreement—which, in the view of both sides, must include a cease-fire—and the holding of elections.

The Communists propose an interim coalition government made up one-third of their representatives, one-third of representatives of a new Saigon Government without President Thieu and one-third of other factions. But they insist on a veto over the participants they do not name. Essentially, they favor elections that confirm an outcome known in advance and achieved by negotiations. The United States has been proposing a process meaningful to Americans but less so to Vietnamese-elections leading to an unknown outcome.

In the secret conversations, the United States for the first time evidently discussed with Hanoi, without commitment, the composition of the interim coalition government the Communists were proposing. It was made clear to Hanoi that the representative "independent" body the United States and Saigon want to run the elections could have powers approaching that of an interim coalition government. Washington evidently is prepared to have equal representation on the commission of the Vietcong, the Saigon Government and third groups chosen jointly by the two chief adversaries.

Hanoi's answer is still awaited on this critical point. Other points of difference between Washington and Hanoi appear to be negotiable, including the terms of American withdrawal and prisoner release.

For the first time in four years of effort the way seems open for serious negotiation of a peace settlement—if both sides are really prepared to accept a political compromise rather than a continued effort to achieve a military victory.

["WASHINGTON POST 30 JANUARY 1972 (31)", "# \"Vietnam: The Same Old Shell Game\" - A Reconciliation from State", "Your editorial of January 27, \"Vietnam: The Same Old Shell Game,\" asserts that the \"ent's proposals do not really represent us; that, except for the addition of a couple of extra troops, the rest of the Vietnam proposals do not really represent us; that, except for the addition of a couple of extra troops, the rest of the

Vietnam: A Limited War for Limited Arms (2)

CYD

In the letters space on the opposite page today, Mr. Marshall Green, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, takes strong exception to our conclusion the other day that President Nixon's latest peace plan for Vietnam is not essentially different from what this administration has been offering all along. Mr. Green asks for our "acknowledgement that (the President's) proposals constitute a new departure and the basis for serious negotiations in Paris."

Well, we have no particular difficulty with that. Dr. Kissinger's long, hard round of secret talks in Paris is certainly something new and final American 8-point offer made in October and revealed by the President in substantially the same form last Tuesday represents a "departure" in some specific ways from earlier offers. (We said as much at the time.) As a basis for serious negotiation, the President's plan, what is more, is vastly superior to the most recent demands set forth by the North Vietnamese—demands which would require this country not only to abandon an ally abruptly and completely, but to undo a large part of what has been accomplished over the years in the way of helping to give the South Vietnamese the capacity to defend themselves—to go it alone. That limited and unconventional objective may not have been our original purpose in intervening but it remains the most we can realistically count on achieving, given the limits we ourselves have placed upon our war effort; it is absurd for Hanoi to suggest that we now write off everything and turn the clock back to, let us say, early 1965, when the South was more or less at the mercy of the North.

But that is not the same thing as saying that any process for settling the war should give the North Vietnamese no chance, or a very slim one, of accomplishing their own objective of some 40 years: This is no more realistic than saying that we should have only the faintest chance of accomplishing ours. The inescapable fact is that there will be no political or military settlement which does not give both sides a reasonable expectation of accomplishing their purposes—and does not impose upon both sides some risk of losing everything.

This is what it all comes down to, when you are weighing the known positions of either side, and this is what troubles us about the peace plan the President disclosed on television the other night, and about the defense now being made of it. In a way that has become all too familiar over recent years, with President Johnson as well as Mr. Nixon, the American position, it seems to us, is being oversold as more generous, more flexible, more far-reaching than it is and that this is being done defensively, and somewhat deceptively, in an effort to silence the war critics and rally support for a peace plan that does not really move us very close to that delicate point where the risks and the expectations of both sides are roughly the same, where there exists on both sides a simultaneous and equal interest in bargaining.

Mr. Green, for example, cites as evidence of our generosity the offer of a cease fire and the withdrawal of all American forces within six months in exchange for our prisoners. He says the North Vietnamese did not object to the cease fire but merely demanded that a political settlement be linked to any military agreement. The latter is hardly surprising since they were insisting on this

back in 1969 when Mr. Nixon announced his peace plan. As for Hanoi's coming to the cease fire, the fact is that while it may not have been singled out in secret talks, our cease fire formula was specifically mentioned as objectionable in North Vietnam's public response to Mr. Nixon's plan last week. It is logically a sticking point in the absence of a political settlement for the obvious reason that it would oblige Hanoi to halt its military pressure against the Soviet government, or in other words, abandon the fight.

Mr. Green makes much of the six-months "fixed duration" of our withdrawal schedule, and of the fact that this process—together with prisoner exchange—would begin before final details had been worked out for the election procedures and for a cease fire, which is all very well; but surely it would not proceed to its end without agreement on these exceedingly complex and controversial questions: Even the preliminary agreement "in principle" would have to be pretty detailed, one would assume, before the phased withdrawals of American troops and return of our prisoners could begin.

Mr. Green also makes a great deal of the arrangement by which President Thieu and his Vice President would step aside in favor of a caretaker a month before elections while an independent commission supervised the voting. By American standards this does look like a fair deal; but Vietnamese politics are not played even by Cook County rules; the whole South Vietnamese military power structure, down through the provinces and district administrations to the villages, would remain presumably in place; fairly or not, it is a lot to expect of a Communist regime, which has not exactly pinned its hopes for success in South Vietnam on a majority vote, to risk everything in one roll of the electoral dice, even American-style.

Finally, Mr. Green chides us for not mentioning that "the President for the first time" is offering a massive post-war reconstruction program in which North Vietnam would share to the tune of several billion dollars. While acknowledging the oversight, we note that while this is Mr. Nixon's first offer of such aid, President Johnson proposed it back in 1965; that offer was more modest, to be sure; but that was when we had barely begun the bombing and there was a lot less in North Vietnam and elsewhere in Indochina to reconstruct.

All this having been said, it is only fair to add that this latest peace plan, because of its now having been made public, must as a practical matter be regarded not as a last offer but as an opening position in a new round of bargaining. As the President himself has suggested, there obviously will have to be more give in this country's position and equally obviously neither he nor Dr. Kissinger can, or should, tell us how much more. And there will also, of course, have to be a great deal more give on the part of the North Vietnamese, who have yet to give up much of anything.

Whether there is some attainable meeting point we do not profess to know. We would only argue that just as there are sharp limits on what the United States can give away, there are also limits, which this administration does not yet give evidence of having faced up to, on what can be achieved in a war fought for limited objectives with limited means. In a subsequent editorial, we propose to take up the question of what, realistically, these limits might have to be.

NEWWEEK MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY 1, 1912

Talking
With the
40
Enemy

"Vietnam will not be an issue in 1972."

Again and again, like a man repeating a litany, Richard Nixon has confidently made that prediction. But although only a handful of American soldiers will remain in Vietnam by the time this fall's Presidential election comes around, the war issue has resolutely refused to go away. As they have revved up for the political campaign, Mr. Nixon's Democratic opponents have repeatedly reminded the voters that the fighting and dying continues in Indochina. Even more stridently, they have charged that the President was not doing all in his power to end the war once and for all. But last week, in another of those thunderbolt announcements that have become a hallmark of his Presidency, Mr. Nixon revealed that he had been conducting a series of secret diplomatic overtures to achieve peace. And although there was perhaps more style than substance in his disclosures, they threw both his domestic critics and foreign adversaries into disarray.

In a nationally televised address the President disclosed that over a period of 30 months, starting in the summer of 1969, the U.S. offered Hanoi a series of increasingly favorable peace proposals. The latest offer was an eight-point package that included a promise of a total U.S. military withdrawal in return for the release of American prisoners of war by Hanoi, a $7.5 billion reconstruction program for Indochina (including North Vietnam) and a proposal for internationally conducted elections in South Vietnam—elections that would be preceded by the resignation of South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu.

More dramatic yet was Mr. Nixon's revelation that the private negotiations with North Vietnam's Le Due Tho and Xuan Thuy had been conducted in true cloak-and-dagger fashion during twelve elaborately camouflaged trips to Paris by Mr. Nixon's foreign-policy chief, national security adviser Henry Kissinger (following story). The day after his speech, the President unleashed his "secret agent," and in Kissinger's first on-the-record press briefing, the Presidential adviser flatly laid the blame for the breakoff of the secret sessions on the Communists. Hanoi, said Kissinger, asked the United States "to align ourselves with them, to overthrow the people that have been counting on us in South Vietnam."

This was not the first time that high-level secret talks between American and North Vietnamese officials had failed. As far back as 1965, President Lyndon Johnson dispatched a special emissary to Paris, but those briefly promising discussions broke down over Hanoi's refusal to compromise on its demand that a coalition government, including Communist representatives, be established before elections were held (page 36). Nor was Mr. Nixon's eight-point proposal itself entirely new. Indeed, in a previous public proposal made at the regular Paris talks, Mr. Nixon had put forth many of the points in his secret peace plan—among them, the call for an Indochina cease-fire, the promise to withdraw U.S. troops in exchange for the POW's release and

Now, however, he can even further by establishing a seven-month time frame for U.S. withdrawal (with no equivalent deadline imposed on him) and the provision that Vietnam would reign in one month of its operations in which the Viet Cong would be free to participate.

## Attacks and Applause

Predictably, the Communists lost no time in assailing the new plan. The North Vietnamese scored Mr. Nixon for issuing "brazen" threats of war and called his speech a "perfidious maneuver to deceive the American electorate in this election year." Not to be outdone, the Viet Cong termed the eight points "nothing but a plan aiming at prolonging the American commitment in South Vietnam." But perhaps just as predictably, the President's announcement scored points at home. Jubilantly, Republican strategists declared that Mr. Nixon had successfully sandbagged his Democratic rivals by going as far as any American President could honorably go in pursuit of peace. And in the immediate aftermath of the speech, few Democrats were ready to challenge that assessment.

In fact, Mr. Nixon's ploy left most of the contenders for the Democratic nomination all but speechless. Hubert Humphrey could only mutter, "So what, there are plenty of other issues." And Edmund Muskie had to acknowledge that Mr. Nixon's plan was "a welcome initiative."

To be sure, Muskie found reason to quarrel with Mr. Nixon's call for an Indo-chinese cease-fire which he said "could well lead to a stalemate." And a number of lesser Democrats echoed The Washington Post's charge that Mr. Nixon's proposal to withdraw U.S. troops within six months *after* an agreement was "about as uncertain a 'date certain' as could be devised" and "more of the same old shell game." But, at bottom, the Democratic leadership was left with little choice but to fall into line and salute the President's efforts. Indeed, Montana's Mike Mansfield, the Democratic Majority Leader in the Senate, candidly expressed the view that "the concessions by the Administration could lay the groundwork for the start of negotiations for the first time."

The disarray of the Democrats was proof once again that Mr. Nixon was not only a grand strategist but a grand political manipulator. By delivering his message when he did, the President clearly hoped to blunt two of his most potentially dangerous political problems. He was known to be apprehensive that anti-war sentiment in the U.S. might be rekindled during the Presidential campaign. And he acknowledged that one reason for his disclosures was to dampen domestic dissent. "Some of our citizens have become accustomed to thinking that whatever our government says must be false and whatever our enemies say must be true," Mr. Nixon remarked. "But the record I have revealed tonight proves the contrary." And, for laWNg, the headlines that Mr. Nixon garnered for his peace proposal shunted off to the inside pages the Administration's embarrassing admission of the day before that the U.S. had run up a $65 billion budget deficit over three fiscal years.

In order to score his domestic points, however, Mr. Nixon ran some risks. By whipping the cover off the secret talks after promising Hanoi he would not publicize their existence, the President might have foreclosed the chance of any future extraordinary negotiating sessions outside the stalemated Paris peace talks. By reiterating U.S. pledges of full support for President Thieu's regime, he left himself open to the charge that he was

working not only to get it, but by making his disclosures last week—rather than waiting for some other moment during the political争of to be clearly called attention to the fact that one reason he spoke out was because of the common military situation in Indochina.

## 'A Lot of Flak at Home'

Only two days before he went on television, in fact, Mr. Nixon dispatched Army Chief of Staff Gen. William 2. Westmoreland to Vietnam for a fresh appraisal of the military situation there. U.S. officials in Saigon have been predicting for some time that the Communists are planning to launch another major offensive during February's Tet holidays. And it was clear that one of Mr. Nixon's motives in revealing U.S. efforts to find a path to peace was to rally world opinion and shame the Communists into holding their fire at Tet. But here again, there were overtones of domestic politics, for the President was well aware that any increase in U.S. casualties in Vietnam—or a South Vietnamese rout—would be grist for his opponents' mill. "It was pretty clear," confided one Administration insider, "that what was bothering the President and Kissinger was that if we got hit hard over there at Tet, we were going to get a lot of flak at home."

But even if the President's move succeeded in staving off a Communist offensive, his plan clearly had its flaws. In his briefing last week, Kissinger claimed that the question of a cease-fire was not an issue between Hanoi and Washington. But not everyone agreed. "A cease-fire is the most obvious non-starter of all," charged one State Department official, expressing a sentiment shared by a number of his colleagues. "That amounts to a surrender for an insurgent movement." And if the Communists were likely to reject that point out of hand, they were scarcely any more likely to be enthusiastic about the Administration's proposal for new elections, embodying as it did Western political concepts alien to the Hanoi regime.

But neither these sticking points nor the harsh reaction from Hanoi seemed to deter the Administration. Secretary of State William P. Rogers said of Hanoi's criticism of the plan, "There has been a good deal of invective about it, but it hasn't been rejected. They have been asking a few questions. That is exactly what negotiators are supposed to do." The Administration, it appeared, fully expected Hanoi to bluster at the beginning—but also to keep the door to compromise ajar. For its part, the U.S. was clearly prepared to settle for virtually anything that would allow America to leave Vietnam with dignity and honor. Insisting on the extreme flexibility of Mr. Nixon's position, one top Administration aide said: "There are 50 ways of settling this thing."

That may be, but there was nonetheless no reason to expect Hanoi to embrace the settlement offered last week. "Hanoi is in no hurry," maintained one former U.S. official. "Hanoi has most of the cards and they can wait." In fact, if the Communists did, in the end, flatly reject his latest proposals, the choices open to Mr. Nixon would be few indeed. "How many times," asked one Democrat sardonically, "can you pull Henry Kissinger out of a hat?" And while it was true that Mr. Nixon was perfectly capable of launching another initiative just as dramatic as the Kissinger caper, the question remained whether anything but further concessions by the U.S. could bring the war closer to an end. As one State Department official acknowledged, "The decisive blow has not yet been struck, but the decisive offer made by

WASHINGTON POST 2 FEBRUARY 72

Vietnam: A Limited War for Limited Aims (11)

We are not going to work our way out of the war in Vietnam—or out of the agony it has brought to the homefront—until we learn to talk about it in something less than absolute and, in an important sense, old-fashioned and irrelevant terms. This is the lesson once again underscored by the response to President Nixon's latest plan for peace—the response which says that to question the President's terms as too rigid amounts to a recommendation for "abject surrender," in the words of Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott.

"Surrender"? To whom? With whom, when you get down to it, are we at war? Is "war" even the word for a struggle in which we have been engaged at various times, and at so many different levels of intensity—financial backer; military adviser; principal combatant; and now, running the reel backward, once again no more than a marginal participant? Wars, as this country has known them, are to be won or lost (in our case, won). But we have not declared war on North Vietnam and the most we ever could have hoped to "win" was prevention of South Vietnam's losing political control of its territory at the hands of a guerrilla insurgency. If the government in Saigon should lose control to the North Vietnamese some other way—by a failure of its own will even after a political settlement, by sheer fatigue on the part of the people, or by greed or corruption or sheer incompetence—would President Nixon nonetheless "become the first President in history to lose a war," as he was putting it to visitors not so very long ago.

The answer, it seems plain to us, is No: at this point, having expended over 50,000 lives and several billion dollars and ten years (or twenty if you wish to go back to our beginning efforts in Indonesia), it is fair to say that we have done all that we could reasonably do for the South Vietnamese; that we have given them the time and the weapons and the money; and that the rest is up to their own will which nobody else can supply. To go on seeking to furnish what only they can furnish for themselves is to invite with certainty that specter—so abhorrent to the President—of a great nation reduced to the position of a "pitiful, helpless giant" unable to have its way, or make good its word, or bring its power to bear. We could have had our way with North Vietnam—but only at what was long ago judged to be an unacceptable risk of a confrontation with China or the Russians, and a far wider war. So we rejected the means of conventional war—invasion, occupation, subjugation, all the absolutes that have been common to past wars, including even Korea, where you could draw a line and call it a front, and work out a truce along

it and agree on a cease-fire which was more or less enforceable. Anybody who thinks you can do that with any assurance of success in Vietnam has not been there.

And yet, having renounced conventional means, we continue to talk and to think in terms of conventional ends, and about "losing" a war that was never ours to lose. We continue to forget that we began with a gesture of economic support for South Vietnam under President Eisenhower, when we thought economic aid would do the trick. When it didn't, we moved to military aid (also under Mr. Eisenhower), and when that wasn't enough we brought in military advisers (in the Kennedy administration) and then authorized them to go out on military operations and to shoot, and that didn't turn the tide either. So it was that under President Johnson we moved combat units into battle and began the bombing and vastly expanded our efforts on the theory that a "graduated response," like a thumbscrew, would soon become unbearable to Hanoi. Only it didn't; instead it became unbearable at home and that was when we "surrendered" in the sense that we abandoned the thumbscrew in March, 1968, by holding back the next increment of American troops and, in the name of Vietnamization, began a steady withdrawal from the war. This withdrawal had only something to do with the course of the war on the ground in Vietnam and a lot more to do with the state of mind at home; the former could be rationalized while the latter was an inescapable fact.

In short, we abandoned even the strictly limited and unconventional means we had been employing—and still continued to hold out the hope of conventional and comfortable ends. So it is that in 1972 we continue to talk about honoring our "commitments" without bothering to define them in realistic terms; to cry "shame" at the thought of an inconclusive or even adverse outcome; to shout "surrender" at those who suggest that there are limits upon what you can do when you are progressively limiting the means you are prepared to employ in order to do it. As Mr. Charles W. Yost writes else where on this page today, "it is far too late for the United States to play a decisive role either in propelling up the Saigon government or in changing it," and we would agree. "Decisive," however, is the critical word. For once we have accepted the principle of the limits upon us, there are still things this country can do—and still things in the way of disengagement that it cannot do abruptly or irresponsibly—in the interest of trying to influence the outcome of the struggle in Vietnam as best it can, and these will be the subject of another editorial.

WASHINGTON POST - 2 FEBRUARY 1972

U.S. In Late Again With Vietnam Concessions, But...

CYS

# It's Not Too Late to Make a Deal for the POWs

By Charles W. Yost

AMONG THE many tragic aspects of United States involvement in Vietnam, two particularly stand out at this moment when the administration has revealed its latest "peace proposal." The first is that, seven years after the massive involvement which most Americans now believe was an appraisal

The writer is a former chief U.S. representative to the U.N. and a diplomat of 40 years experience.

mistake, the administration is still determined to win the war, even while leaving it. The second is that concessions on our part necessary for a negotiated settlement have always come much too late.

There was a time, some years ago, when a plan similar to the one now offered by the administration might have succeeded in ending the war. In 1968 I prepared for a private organization a plan for a Vietnam settlement which contained most of the elements of the latest United States proposal. This plan was submitted to the incoming administration in December, 1968. It is most gratifying to find that it has been in large part adopted nearly four years later.

There are, however, two significant differences between the two plans. The first is in timing. At the beginning of 1969, the United States had more than half a million troops in Vietnam, and Hanoi might possibly have been willing to pay a high price to them out quickly. By the summer of 1970, United States forces will presumably be down to about 30,000; our leverage is already vastly less; and the price we could now exact for what we have to offer would be a small one.

THE SECOND significant difference—this one substantive—between my plan of 1968 and the administration's of 1971 was that I suggested that new elections be conducted, not by "an independent body representing all political forces in South Vietnam," but by a neutral interim government having that representative character.

Such an interim arrangement might possibly have been saleable to both sides in 1969 if the United States had pressed hard enough. It is not now, because we have long since passed decision-making from ourselves to Thieu.

The administration proposal leaves Thieu's authority essentially intact, and from Hanoi's point of view, this is a fatal defect. While the plan provides for the resignation of President Thieu and his vice president one month before the election takes place, and for the "independent" election supervision, it otherwise leaves the entire apparatus of government, executive and legislative and local, police and military in the hands of the present regime.

This is the apparatus that would in fact, whatever else might be stipulated, "run" the elections. Under those circumstances the result would be a foregone conclusion.

The fact that President Thieu has cheerfully accepted this program suggests that he is not worried about its outcome.

NATURALLY every American would be delighted if Hanoi would accept the administration's latest "peace proposal." We would however, be deluding ourselves enormously—for about the hundredth time in the Vietnam war—if we really expected that they would.

So far Hanoi's rejection seems unequivocal. The official Chinese press agency has characterized it as a "plan for persisting in the war of aggression against Vietnam and Indochina." That does not sound hopeful.

To be quite frank, there never was any sound reason for believing that Hanoi would accept at this late date a cease-fire and political "settlement" which would be almost certain to confirm the Thieu regime in office.

The idea of a cease-fire is particularly chimerical. For many years the previous administration and this one have been pursuing this particular will-o-the-wisp. It was always entirely clear that the North Vietnamese would never agree to a cease-fire of any significant duration as long as United States or South Vietnamese forces held the populated centers in the south. To do so would have been to admit that they had lost the war, which they have not been and are not willing to do.

One cannot help but wonder, therefore, whether this latest proposal, like all the similar ploys of the Johnson administration, was not put forward, and spiced by the exciting bustling back and forth to secret meetings, chiefly in order to persuade the American electorate that its government has "gone the last mile for peace"—while it continues to wage the war.

AS CYNICS have noted, the rejection of this "peace proposal" and the anticipated launching of new offensives by Hanoi could easily be used as pretexts for more United States bombing and hence more, not less, United States involvement.

The only way quickly to end United States participation in the war is the one repeatedly proposed by majorities in the Congress—to offer a firm and early date for total United States withdrawal in exchange only for the simultaneous release of our prisoners.

The future of Vietnam will eventually be settled between the two Vietnamese governments, either by negotiation or by continued fighting. It is far too late for the United States to play a decisive role either in propelling up the Saigon government or in changing it. Vietnamese politics is no longer our business. That should be the ultimate meaning of "Vietnamization."

It is not too late, however, for us to make a deal for the release of our prisoners. After all, they are of no use to Hanoi except as leverage for bargaining the United States out.

Once Hanoi is convinced the United States is going out completely, out of Vietnamese politics as well as out of the war, a decision should still be possible. Furthermore, we wait, the more we pretend to be a phantom "peace proposals," the less and less our leverage for the release of our prisoners will become.

The two plans

We now have before us for comparison the two Vietnam peace plans which the American diplomats have presented to each other at Paris. The comparison tells us what we have known all along: that issue is who controls Saigon when the fighting is over and that on this point there is no compromise yet in sight.

Six of the American eight points match six of the North Vietnamese nine points closely enough so that we can push them aside. There would be no problems. The nonmatch points are only two. One is the makeup of an interim government in Saigon. In the American plan it would be the existing regime in all respects except for President Thieu stepping out of office one month before an election day. Under the rival plan the existing government would simply disappear and be replaced by an interim coalition regime with Communist participation which then would negotiate with the Viet Cong over the political future of the country.

The other nonmatch point is the cease-fire. In the American plan it would begin with the signing of the agreement and include a stop to all further movement of troops and supplies down the Ho Chi Minh trails into South Vietnam. The rival plans for a cease-fire when all the troops have been worked out, and it is agreed about an end to infiltration.

Placed side by side and compared, the differences mean that Washington wants and expects the Thieu regime in Saigon to continue to control all the cities and roads of South Vietnam indefinitely after the American soldiers go home, whereas Hanoi wants and expects the Viet Cong to take over effective control as the Americans go.

Which, of course, is where it all started some 25 years ago when native political elements set out to expel foreign control of their country. In those days it was the French and their native dependents. Now it is the Americans and the native elements sustained by the Americans.

The differences could be compromised, at least in theory, if both sides were willing to settle for a compromise. But there is no sign yet that either side is ready for a compromise. Washington is still firm in its belief that Vietnamization is working, hence that with continuing American air and supply support the Thieu regime can defend itself and survive.

Rivals seem to think that the Thieu will weaken as the American soldier and hence that in due time they will get what they want.

So, as usual in such cases, there is nothing to be done at the moment but wait for the test by war which will determine which side is over optimistic.

It is not yet time for the diplomats

44

BALTIMORE SUN - 2 FEBRUARY 1973 P-10

Warnings of Another Tet Offensive

The Washington administration is going to great lengths to warn against a possible concerted enemy attack in Vietnam timed for this year's Tet holidays, in mid-February, or perhaps earlier. Now General Westmoreland, Army chief of staff who was commander in Vietnam when the enemy struck at Tet in 1968, has added his voice to the chorus of forecasts of such an offensive. He sees the probability of a "multiple" attack, probably concentrated on the Central Highlands, the adjoining coastal areas and the region immediately below the demarcation zone. Other sources, for example the weekly newspaper

The Asian, published in Hong Kong, report signs and rumors that Saigon might again be a target, either primary or as a diversion.

It is General Westmoreland's judgment that intelligence of enemy movements and intentions is better than it was four years ago, and that any attack can be effectively countered by South Vietnamese troops, with American artillery and air support; this last dispute the now-acknowledged fact that last month's heavy air attacks on the Ho Chi Minh Trail supply routes were largely wasted.

Should the alerting of the American public prove well-founded, at least this time the public cannot claim not to have been forewarned; and if the attack is weak, or fails substantially, that will undoubtedly be pointed to as evidence that "Vietnamization," a term which can be interpreted according to the interpreter's needs at any moment, is actually working.

The whole thing is once again, as through the years, guess and rumor and speculation. Again we shall have to wait and see, and again we face the dreary prospect, after the event, of a new mass of readings and rationalizations which, added up, are likely to amount to little except that the war goes inconsiderably on and on.

WASHINGTON POST - 2 FEBRUARY 1972 P-26

Poll Shows Backing
For Nixon Peace Plan

Almost half the people who told a national survey they were familiar with President Nixon's peace proposals, which were disclosed Jan. 2, said they favored them.

The Sindlinger Company, in Swarthmore, Pa., which specializes in economic and political forecasting, found that 47 per cent of the almost 2,000 people it questioned liked the proposals.

Of those familiar with the proposals 21.4 per cent were negative while 13 per cent were neutral.

Albert E. Sindlinger, president of the company, said that 87.3 per cent of those interviewed knew about the proposals. He called this a very high response.

The survey showed that 48.4 per cent favor a negotiated settlement in Southeast Asia over either giving up entirely or pursuing military victory compared with 29 per cent in Nov. 1969. But the percentage of women who prefer giving

up to negotiations has doubled since that time.

Sixty-three per cent of the public polled thinks the President is doing all he can to end the war, compared to a low of 52 per cent after the Cambodian incursion in May, 1970.

Over 48 per cent of those interviewed named President Nixon as their first choice for President in 1972. But Sindlinger said other surveys have found that this result hinges on Mr. Nixon's economic moves, not his efforts to end the war.

WASHINGTON POST - 4 FEBRUARY 1972 P-24

Vietnam: A Limited War for Limited Gains (III)

In a letter today, Mr. John Moors Cabot, a career diplomat with long experience, vigorously defends the Nixon administration's Plan for Peace in Vietnam in what might be called the traditional mode, which is to say that Vietnam is a classic exercise in Communist containment; that the historic anti-thesis is to be found in the appeasement of the Axis powers before World War II; that "the real choice before us may be whether we choose to fight with allies in distant lands against Communist aggressions or to fight eventually on our own territory without them"; and that the only alternative to carrying on is an "abject surrender" which would only serve to "encourage the Communists to further aggressions." This being the very opposite of our own concept of a limited war for limited aims, we welcome the opportunity offered by Ambassador Cabot's letter to try to answer the central question it raises: what should—or should not—be done to "achieve peace without destroying vital national interests." We would begin with Mr. Cabot's conclusion—that the Communists will be satisfied "with nothing less than total victory" in Vietnam. If that is really the case, then there will obviously be no negotiated settlement for no more than Mr. Cabot do we believe that this country should "make one concession after another until we reach the Communists' demands."

But if there is to be no mutually satisfactory political settlement of the conflict, then we would define the Vietnam dilemma with a question of our own: How would Mr. Cabot and those of his persuasion go about securing the independence of South Vietnam, ending our involvement in the war, and obtaining the release of our prisoners? Would they invade North Vietnam, bomb Hanoi, mine Haiphong harbor, or reintroduce American combat troops on the ground? Or would they merely hang on indefinitely, with a residual American force on the scene, with continued use of our air power, with continuing heavy expenditures in economic

and military aid—and with our POWs still beyond our reach? Since it seems safe to say that there is almost no public tolerance in this country for the idea of re-escalating the war and not much tolerance for a continuing, open-ended American involvement, what it all comes down to, it seems to us, is that neither of these alternatives is feasible and that we might as well face up to the fact that there are very real limits on our capacity to determine the destiny of South Vietnam.

It is easy enough to say that the North Vietnam-ese will tire in time, that their war effort will wither away, that they will ultimately negotiate because it is not in their interests to let this conflict drag on. But we were told long ago that it was not in their interests to tangle with the world's greatest power in the first place and that with a few turns on the thumbscrew they would sue for peace. Yet they haven't, and any honest calculation of future prospects has to take into consideration the strong possibility that they won't.

In fact, that seems to be Mr. Cabot's view—and it is widely shared. As Chalmers M. Roberts put it in an article on this page a few days ago: "Hanoi does not want just a chance to win in the South; it wants a certainty." And again, from Leslie Gelb, in last Sunday's Outlook section: "Hanoi is not interested in a fair compromise. It never has been. Its stakes in this war are light years apart from ours." This bleak prospect, and the analysis that accompanies it, could conceivably be altered, just as in the past the bargaining positions of both sides have been altered, by the course of the actual conflict, on the ground, in South Vietnam, or in Laos or in Cambodia. They could make headway which might encourage them to harden their stand—or suffer losses which might induce some softening. So we cannot be categorical about the outlook for a negotiated settlement.

What we can be very nearly categorical about, however, is that if the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong wish to remain intransigent, we are severely limited, in two ways, in what we can do to change their minds. We are limited in terms

VETERAN: A LIMITED WAR FOR LIMITED GATES (III) ... CONTINUED

of military means and also in terms of the concessions we can make. Having addicted the South Vietnamese to fighting the war our way, with the latest thing in sophisticated weaponry, we cannot suddenly saw off all support. In the absence of a final, political settlement, continuation of some part of our economic and military logistical support is not negotiable. What we are left with then is our air support and our dwindling ground forces as a bargaining counter for the release of the POWs. It is not much, but it is something, and it is a counter, contrary to what Mr. Cabot and others would have us believe, which has yet to be played. What has been offered is our withdrawal from all military operations in exchange for the prisoners together with a general cease-fire which has never been a starter in Hanoi for the obvious reason that it would rob the North Vietnamese of the only weapon it has—the freedom to wage a continuing terrorist insurgency in the South. The administration says it is not worth offering this proposition without the cease-fire attached because Hanoi has already scorned it in advance and that may be. But there is a surer way to demonstrate its nonacceptability and that is to offer it formally.

If it is accepted, the war will not end, necessarily. But we will not have abandoned our ally; with our continued aid, economic and military, it is not now unreasonable to expect the South Vietnamese to defend themselves; they have more than a million men under arms, well equipped; when it suits a particular line of argument, administration effi-

cials are the first to say that the South Vietnamese actually have the capability now to provide for their own defense. They are opposed, what is more, by an enemy even more strictly limited as to military means: Hanoi is not bombing the South, its forces have no helicopters and only a handful of rockets and tanks and heavy artillery pieces; mostly they operate with small arms.

So we do not see why it is shameful or dishonorable—or what it has to do with “abject surrender”—to propose that this country proceed as fast as possible to liquidate its military involvement in this war, conditioned only on the release of POWs. At the very least, that offer would clear the air at home, for this is the proposition now favored by most of the more important critics of the Nixon policy. And it might also serve to clear the air in Saigon, for it would say in the plainest possible terms that we do not propose to hang on indefinitely supporting a regime which has been given as reasonable a chance as it could expect to develop the capability to defend itself.

On the assumption that the North Vietnamese are in fact insistent on ultimate, total victory—and that this country cannot be a party to any political process which would deliver South Vietnam to the North—we do not see a realistic alternative, for all the heralded generosity of Mr. Nixon's latest peace plan. There are large risks of ultimate failure for us in withdrawing completely from military operations—just as there would have to be an acceptance of large risks in any political settlement which the enemy would conceivably accept. This is the first lesson of Vietnam, as yet unlearned or at least not widely acknowledged, by either the critics or the executors of our war policy: the risk of failure, even in the face of a long, hard, costly mission accomplished by any reasonable test, is the ultimate limit imposed by the very nature of a limited war.

CYJ

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR 4 FEBRUARY 1972

Peace talks: the struggle over Thieu

By Takashi Oka

Staff correspondent of
The Christian Science Monitor

Paris

American and Communist negotiators at the Vietnam peace talks here seem to be edging gingerly toward a discussion of the central issue of the Vietnam conflict: Who takes power in South Vietnam?

At Thursday's meeting around the circular conference table in the grim gray former Hotel Majestic, Hanoi and the Viet Cong put forward a two-point proposal calling for a "specific terminal date" for withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam and for the "immediate" resignation of South Vietnamese President Thieu.

Of the two points, the second appeared to be crucial.

It responded in part to the eight-point proposal President Nixon announced earlier, under which President Thieu would step down one month before the date of new elections to be organized by an "independent body including all political forces in South Vietnam."

That American proposal, in turn, was the first indication of any degree of willingness by Washington to move in a direction long demanded by the Communists: the abandonment of the Nguyen Van Thieu administration.

It was first broached by presidential adviser Henry A. Kissinger to the Communists in secret negotiations last October, apparently with the approval of President Thieu himself.

When asked whether an eventual compromise was possible between the demand for "immediate" resignation put forward by the Communists and the American offer of a resignation one month before new presidential elections, a Communist source smiled and was noncommittal.

To the American electorate, tired of the long war in Vietnam, of its staggering costs in money and human lives, and of the deep divisions it has caused within American society, the primary issue may be "how to bring the boys home," how to find any decent and honorable way of emerging from a conflict seemingly without end.

## Details not spelled out

To these Americans, Hanoi's peace plan presented Thursday offered, in effect, to exchange complete withdrawal of American "troops, advisers, military personnel, weapons, and war material" from Vietnam for the release of all prisoners on both sides, including "U.S. pilots captured in North Vietnam."

The details were not spelled out, though Communist spokesmen pointed out specifically that the United States must stop "its air war," meaning bombings by planes based in Thailand or on carriers off the Indo-China coast.

This portion of the Communist package could, presumably, be worked out eventually along the lines many Americans seem to desire — a withdrawal of United States troops in exchange for American captives in North Vietnam.

To the Vietnamese themselves, however,

whether Communist or non-Communist, the core question is what would happen in South Vietnam before, during, and after the American withdrawal—whether power would remain with President Thieu, whether it would be transferred to the Communists, or whether some coalition including safeguards for both Communists and non-Communists is arrangeable.

## Two questions linked

Washington, as distinct from the American public at large, understands this. The most sensitive aspect of Mr. Kissinger's secret negotiations with Hanoi representative Le Duc Tho appears to have concerned this point.

[The Associated Press reports from Saigon that Le Duc Tho, the chief adviser to North Vietnam's delegation at the Paris peace talks, may be in Peking at the same time President Nixon visits there, according to informed sources. These sources say the report, passed on by diplomats in Laos, indicated Mr. Tho would arrive in the Chinese capital about one day before Mr. Nixon's arrival on Feb. 21.]

Withdrawal of American troops is also linked to the central question of power in South Vietnam, because although these troops in fact are already leaving Vietnam in stages, the manner of their further withdrawal will affect the stability of the Saigon administration and thereby the relative balance of Communists and non-Communists in any future regime.

In their comments after the Thursday session therefore, Communist spokesmen laid equal emphasis on both points — a specific date for withdrawal and the resignation of President Thieu.

They pointed out that they no longer demanded that the United States withdraw its troops by the end of 1971, or in six months, or in a year, as they had previously.

## Policy change sought

They also emphasized that they were no longer calling for the dissolution of the entire Saigon administration, but merely for a change in policy by that administration, accompanied by the resignation of President Thieu.

Emerging from the conference hall, Viet Cong delegate Nguyen Van Thien was markedly less pejorative in his comments about the Saigon representative at the talks than previously.

Instead of the usual shower of epithets such as "puppet" or "lackey," Mr. Thien merely insisted that, contrary to the assertions of the Saigon representative, the two points he had presented did contain "new elements" and mildly asked "the American and Saigon delegations to continue studying them seriously."

For Washington, the Communist offer poses grave risks. Hitherto President Nixon has steadfastly refused to disavow President Thieu, to permit any kind of settlement that would make it appear the United States had bowed to Communist demands to overthrow what in American eyes is the legitimate government of South Vietnam.

The American argument is that if the Communists will give up their own use of force, their political legitimacy will be recognized. The Communists reply that so long as President Thieu remains in power, they cannot trust this guarantee.

WASHINGTON POST

7 FEB. 1972 P-1

War Dealt
Rejected
By Hanoi

Won't Release
POWs in Trade
For Pullout

By Hedley Burrell

Washington Post Staff Writer

North Vietnam's chief delegate to the Paris peace talks made it clear yesterday that his side will not give up prisoners of war in return for withdrawal of all U.S. forces.

The delegate, Xuan Thuy, also indicated that the military and political issues must be handled together.

The conditions for settlement, he said, changed with the re-election last October of North Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu.

He suggested that the POWs could have been returned in exchange for a total withdrawal, and the political and military issues could have been handled separately last year if the Nixon administration had withdrawn support of Thieu.

"It would have allowed Mr. Nixon to get out of the war very honorably," Thuy declared on "Face the Nation" (CBS-WTOP). "But Mr. Nixon refused to do that."

Thuy asserted in a New York Times interview Saturday that had the United States set a precise date for withdrawal before the October elections, Thieu would not have been re-elected. He thus suggested that an overall settlement would have been possible by withdrawal alone.

Secretary of State William P. Rogers, reacting on a separate segment of "Face the Nation" to Thuy's comments, said, "We have on every opportunity pointed out that with Vietnam would not contain a separate military and political settlement. They have said, 'We will return your POWs unless you throw out

the government in Vietnam and meet our considerations.' It has never worked any other way, it is not possible for us to work out any military solution unless we give them exactly what they want and that would mean total defeat for the United States."

Thuy was interviewed in Paris, Rogers in Washington.

Sen. George S. McGovern (D-S.D.) a presidential aspirant, has repeatedly argued that the Communists would release the POWs if Mr. Nixon set a firm withdrawal date. Thuy indicated yesterday that while this would have been possible before the October elections in Vietnam last year, it was no longer the case.

Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D. Maine), who has come under fire for tagging Mr. Nixon's peace proposals a rearrangement of rejected offers, has said the United States should offer a withdrawal date in return for the POWs and press Saigon to work out a settlement with the Communists.

Except for the suggestion that the United States pressure Saigon to talk with the other side, Muskie's proposals are not considered drastically different from those of Mr. Nixon or other Democrats.

In Miami Beach, another presidential hopeful, Sen. HBert H. Humphrey (D-Minn.) said in an interview with Paul G. Edwards of The Washington Post that he does not consider the North Vietnamese position outlined by Thuy to be an obstacle to ending U.S. involvement in the war.

"Our last priority should be the preservation of Mr. Thieu as head of the South Vietnamese government," Humphrey said. "He has indicated he is willing to step aside... the point is that his successor should not be selected by either the United States or North Vietnam. The people of South Vietnam must have the right to choose a leader in elections that include the Vietcong."

Presidential adviser H. R. Haldeman, meanwhile, in an interview to be broadcast on the "Today" show (NBC-WRC), said that critics of Mr. Nixon's efforts to reach a Vietnam settlement were "consciously aiding and abetting the enemy."

In the interview broadcast yesterday, Thuy asked: "Why doesn't President Nixon make a statement stopping commitment to the Saigon administration? And then the Vietnam problem would be very rapidly settled, both political and military."

Rogers answered: "It is not the Saigon regime we're supporting. We're supporting the people in South Vietnam so that they can decide their own future. We just want to work out a relation so South Vietnam can decide its own future."

Thuy was asked why North Vietnam refused to let an impartial group of observers visit American POWs.

"The conditions of this war are different from any other war," Thuy replied. "You must understand that. The war in Vietnam has its own characteristics. If now we let those people visit camps it might help Mr. Nixon in his aim..." He then referred to the unsuccessful U.S. commanding raid of a POW camp in North Vietnam in 1970.

Thuy said that the disclosure Jan. 23 by Mr. Nixon of secret meetings between U.S. national security affairs adviser Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese negotiators was a serious obstacle to a peace settlement.

This was the second time that Mr. Nixon disclosed secret meetings to end the war, Thuy added. The first, he said, was in 1969, when the President spoke of talks with the North held by Henry Cabot Lodge, then the U.S. chief negotiator in Paris.

Asked if his side would favor new talks should Kissinger request them, the minister responded that it would depend on whether Mr. Nixon was serious about reaching a settlement.

He said he does not think that the United States and China would strike a deal adverse to North Vietnam when Mr. Nixon visits Peking later this month.

Peking has always supported progressive movements, he said, adding that China had denounced the U.S. peace proposals and supported the Viet Cong's bid for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces and the end of American support for Thieu.

Asked why the POWs had to be used as pawns in the negotiations, Thuy replied, "It is Mr. Nixon who uses the POWs as pawns, not us."

He said the prisoners were receiving medical treatment and a new list of captives would be published "in due time."

Rogers was asked about the prospects for a North Vietnamese and Viet Cong offensive in the near future.

"My information," he said,

"Is that they are moving troops down to the central highlands and strengthening their forces near the Demilitarized Zone." He said an offensive could come within the next month and might coincide with Mr. Nixon's Feb. 21 visit to China.

Thuy said the reports were all speculation.

"Statements make me wonder whether it is the United States who is now conditioning opinion for launching some military adventures against the Vietnamese ..." he remarked.

In Paris, meanwhile, Jean de Broglie, leader of a French parliamentary mission visiting North Vietnam, was quoted as saying the Viet Cong not only want Thieu's resignation but are insisting that the police system in the South be disbanded.

It was put to Rogers that the Communist position all boiled down to one point—"how they define continued American support of Saigon."

"It appears very clear from both these broadcasts that there is something utterly irreconcilable about it, both philosophically and politically," an interviewer suggested.

Rogers answered that negotiations always "seem irreconcilable until they're reconciled."

"I think the President's proposals provide us a foundation on which negotiations could succeed," Rogers added.

CYD

NEW YORK TIMES
8 FEBRUARY 1972

Vietnam Debate

Resumption of secret negotiations undoubtedly is
essential if the Vietnam war is to be ended. But an
informed public opinion in the United States and the
vigorous discussion now under way are equally impor-
tant to keep the negotiations above board. The open
debate between Hanoi and Washington is contributing
to that end. The latest Rogers-Xuan Thuy exchange, on
top of earlier revelations about last year's secret talks,
has put Americans in a better position than ever before
to judge the private negotiating positions of both sides.

It is clear that a simple swap of American troop
withdrawal for release of prisoners of war is not now
being offered by Hanoi. It is doubtful that it was offered
last year, although that question is one that may long
be disputed.

This year, as last year, Hanoi's primary objective is
a political change in Saigon, starting with the removal
of President Thieu from office. Last year's presidential
election in South Vietnam, which might have accom-
plished that purpose, could have made it unnecessary
for Hanoi to insist that the United States oust General
Thieu directly, Mr. Thuy has indicated. But Hanoi's
definition of American withdrawal has always included
cessation of the economic and military aid without
which the Saigon regime could not survive. This flaw
undermines Hanoi's ambiguous claim that American
withdrawal and prisoner release last year could have
been negotiated separately from a South Vietnamese
political settlement.

But Secretary Rogers' reply to Mr. Thuy was equally
flawed. Mr. Rogers sounded like a replay of an old
record in his talk of self-determination, free elections,
letting the South Vietnamese people choose their own
future and American refusal to turn the country over
to the Communists. The Nixon Administration's acqui-
scence last year in the rigged single-slate election
through which President Thieu avoided a challenge to
his re-election from South Vietnam's non-Communists
destroyed the credibility of the American suggestion
to the Communists that elections are the route to a
political settlement.

If there was anything hopeful in the secret Kissinger-
Le Duc Tho talks last year, it was in Mr. Kissinger's
hint that a coalition "independent body" with powers
approaching that of a coalition government could be set
up by negotiations and confirmed by elections. His later
hint that President Thieu might resign earlier than pro-
posed should add sufficient attraction to entice Hanoi
back to the private negotiating table.

What Americans must face now is the clear statement
by Mr. Thuy that Hanoi will not release American prisoners
until a political settlement brings the war not just
the American involvement, to an end. That settlement
hinges on a sharing of power in Saigon with the Vietcong
and neutralist groups, and a division of power in
the provinces between areas of Communist and Saigon
predominance.

Hanoi's refusal to negotiate with a Thieu Government
and the United States' refusal to remove President Thieu
from office prior to a settlement means that only further
Washington-Hanoi negotiation can bring about the
requisite political settlement. It will not be easily
achieved; but a resumption of private negotiations is
necessary to determine whether such a settlement can
be achieved at all.

50

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
14 FEBRUARY 1972

Whose Side Is
Mr. Thieu On?

Ranking high on the long list of tragic errors
the United States has made in Vietnam —
headed by the frightful mistake of blundering
into the war in the first place is the und-
erved buildup given to South Vietnamese Presi-
dent Nguyen Van Thieu.

This political opportunist, who holds office as
the result of rigged elections bearing no resem-
blance to democratic process, has enjoyed a
steady diet of bowing and scraping by the White
House, the State Department and the Pentagon.
Everyone in Washington has leaned so far back-
ward to avoid offending Mr. Thieu that he has
become obsessed with illusions of self-impor-
tance.

It's time he were cut down to size, especially
in view of his latest temperamental outburst.

President Thieu went before his govern-
ment-controlled television cameras in Saigon to
wax indignant over a recent news conference
statement by Secretary of State Rogers — who
made the reasonable observation that U.S. pol-
icy is "flexible" in negotiating peace terms
which may include internationally supervised
elections in South Vietnam.

"The American Government," Mr. Thieu
said, "cannot act as a representative of the
Vietnamese Government in discussions with the
other side about internal politics, without first
consulting Saigon."

Mr. Thieu has, in fact, been consulted again
and again. He made a public offer to resign a
month before internationally supervised elec-
tions and enjoyed full credit for this sensible
move toward a negotiated settlement with
Hanoi and the Vietcong.

But Mr. Thieu's unkindest cuts were his con-
demnation of flexibility in U.S. policy as "a se-
rious violation of Vietnamese sovereignty" and
his gratuitous remark: "I think Mr. Rogers
does not understand thoroughly the relationship
between Mr. Nixon and myself."

For the president of South Vietnam to sug-
gest that he has closer ties to the White House
than the U.S. secretary of state is an insult both
to Mr. Nixon and to Mr. Rogers.

Moreover the Thieu attack on flexibility in
America's negotiating position conveys an omi-
nous implication that the Saigon regime does
not really want to negotiate a political settle-
ment.

Without flexibility, successful negotiation is
impossible. Mr. Thieu knows that. His lecturing
of Secretary Rogers on diplomatic strategy was
not only a breach of good manners but a thinly
veiled threat to sabotage any agreement that
does not maintain the status quo in Saigon.

NATION MAGAZINE 7 FEBRUARY 1972 (4)

‘John Public’

Any doubt that the Vietnamese War is still a live issue in the election has been removed by the President's sudden decision to use prime television time to "go public" with his unilateral and extremely abbreviated version of secret negotiations with the North Vietnamese that have been going on for thirty months, and to place, on the record, the latest American offer. Of the eight-point proposal little need be said; it is about what one might assume the Administration would present. Perhaps disclosure of the offer will, as the President suggests, "re-vitalize" the Paris negotiations, although that is most unlikely, at least for the time being. For as Senator Javits has suggested, "there is little hope for near-term acceptance"; if there were, the President would not have "gone public." But the disclosure should clarify the ongoing debate. By making the record public, if only in summary form, the President has made it possible to narrow certain points in dispute. The immediate subject of interest, however, is not the American proposal per se but the politics of the statement. For, as everyone knows by now, the President always deals with the politics of problems, not with problems as such.

Politically, the President is seeking to throw the opposition off balance. He would like it to appear that he is taking the offensive against his critics, although his posture —as reflected in the address—is extremely defensive. To that end, he would like us to believe that his critics have been "echoing the propaganda" of the North Vietnamese and thereby "misleading" them as well as the public. At the same time, his aides have made it clear that he decided to speak now because the discrepancy between what the Administration felt it could say publicly and what it has been saying in secret negotiations was creating a dangerous "credibility" gap. However, for this gap, which is real enough, the President has only himself to blame. Without "going public," he could have briefed the Congressional leadership and his public statements could have been more circumspect and less misleading. It is one thing to guard against "leaks" that might adversely affect secret negotiations; the exercise of such a discretion does not require slapping down the opposition as naive for urging measures which he now says he was proposing in secret sessions. Precisely because the discrepancies between the public and private positions of the Administration became so obvious, so often, and on so many points, the opposition had no alternative but to question and probe and propose. Too many disclosures, including the Pentagon Papers and the Anderson Papers, have made it abundantly clear that the President does not always have the best information or advice; nor, on the record of the Johnson and Nixon Administrations, can public statements by Presidents always be accepted at face value.

If the public has been divided on the issue of the war and the current state of the negotiations, primary responsibility rests with the President, not with the opposition. By the President's own admission, only Kissinger and Rogers shared with him knowledge of what was going on at the secret sessions and, as he boasts, there were no "leaks." On occasion the conduct of foreign policy, and not merely in Vietnam, has been the concern of these three men, on some occasions only two of them have been involved. Former U.N. Ambassador Charles W. Yost, after studying the Anderson Papers, has said that never in

thirty-five years of government service during which he attended any number of top-secret, high-level White House and State Department conferences, did one man so dominate discussion of a major policy question as Kissinger dominated that on India-Pakistan.

In weighing the President's attempt to throw his critics off balance, the public should keep several obvious considerations in mind. It was political pressure that forced President Johnson to call a temporary halt in the bombing of North Vietnam and open negotiations in Paris. It was political pressure which prompted candidate Nixon to proclaim loud and clear that he had a plan to end the war. After he moved into the White House, the pressure abated because it seemed only fair to give him an interval of adjustment before he put the plan into effect. But as months went by, the plan was not forthcoming. When political pressure was reapplied, the President came forth with the "Vietnamization" concept, which is not a plan to end the war but a semantic device to unload the burden of the fighting—if not its cost—on the South Vietnamese.

Political pressure has been responsible for the troop withdrawals for which the President takes personal credit—as though Cooper, Church, Hatfield, McGovern, Fulbright and Mansfield had not been urging troop withdrawal. Political pressure, notably on the POW issue, is responsible for the fact that the President finally decided, after some 19,000 additional American casualties, to make the kind of offer on October 11, 1971, that should have been made as an opening proposition at the Paris talks. And it is political pressure that prompted him to stage his latest television spectacular. No better proof could be offered that he is still on the defensive on the key issue of the war than his sudden decision to "go public." He hopes, of course, that his disclosures will quiet the public and befuddle the opposition. But initial reactions would indicate that, while he may have narrowed the scope of debate, he has not disposed of the issue.

It should be noted, also, that Mr. Nixon is attempting to lay the political foundation for public acceptance of the kinds of military actions he feels he may have to initiate to offset the gains which the North Vietnamese have already scored in Laos and Cambodia, and the kinds of actions they may launch on the eve of his departure for Peking. On the basis of Dr. Kissinger's strategy for victory in Vietnam, analyzed by Virginia Brodine and Mark Selden in "The Armageddon Bluff" (The Nation, January 31), one might expect the President's peace initiative to be followed before long by an intensification of military aggression. What he had to say, therefore, should be read with a large measure of caution and skepticism. Caution, because what he said may actually foreshadow not an early end to the war but rather an escalation in the fighting. Skepticism, because the public has even now heard only what the President has had to say about the negotiations, and we assume that his words are self-serving. At the appropriate time, as Senator McGovern suggests, there should be a bipartisan investigation of the entire negotiations, including both the public and private sessions, step by step, in proper chronological sequence. Such an inquiry would be more relevant than any search into the reasons for American involvement in this immoral war. Barring some dramatic developments in Laos, Cambodia or South Vietnam, attention now shifts to the upcoming talks in Peking.

NEW YORK TIMES 14 FEBRUARY 1972

The Balance in the War-Powers Bill

"The act is needed to restore the balance between Congress and the President."

By JACOB K. JAVITS

WASHINGTON—A national debate has begun on 'the War Powers Act.'

The bill was the subject of intensive, year-long hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

There has been criticism of the bill from Secretary Rogers, as well as from such former Kennedy and Johnson advisers as George Ball, Eugene Rostow and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and from Senator Goldwater. These critics have largely presented their objections to the bill from the perspective of "President's men." But I do not believe that they have grasped the real reason for the bill, nor do they give sufficient weight to the constitutional and legislative imperatives arising from our national experience of the past several decades.

The United States emerged from World War II as the dominant world power—a role quite alien to all our previous national experience. The unique challenges arising from this new role were such that we slipped into a practice which ran counter to the genius of our Constitution and the underlying structure of our political institutions. This practice tended to concentrate the essential power of war and foreign policy in the institution of the Presidency and to leave to the Congress only an appropriations or confirmatory role. This practice has proved to be a most costly failure which has dangerously strained the fabric of our whole society.

The War Powers Act corrects the basic flaw of the postwar practice by

restoring to the Congress and to the people a meaningful role on the question of war or peace.

Critics of the War Powers Act have alleged most frequently that the provisions of the bill are too rigid; that the bill does not and cannot foresee all the "unforeseeable" contingencies which might face the nation at some future time. Such criticism is wide of the mark. The bill provides four categories of situations in which the President may take emergency military action in the absence of a declaration of war: first, to repel or forestall an attack—or imminent threat of an attack—upon the United States; second, to repel or forestall an attack upon the armed forces of the United States located outside of the country; third, to rescue endangered U. S. citizens abroad in defined circumstances, and fourth, "pursuant to specific statutory authorization."

This last category is designed specifically to enable the President and the Congress together to meet any contingency the nation might face.

Over the last twenty-five years the Congress on a number of occasions has passed so-called "area resolutions" at the President's request — most famous the ill-begotten Tonkin Gulf Resolution. The "fourth category" of the War Powers Act envisages replacement of the old, loosely-worded "area resolution" with precisely worded, new resolutions—as needed—which establish a national policy, jointly constructed by the President and Congress, respecting developing crises or threats which could involve use of the

armed forces. A Congress and a nation so badly burned by Vietnam and the Tonkin Gulf Resolution can be expected to exercise more appropriate caution, prudence and precision.

The War Powers Act makes ample provision for emergency action by the President. Its unique feature is that, in doing so, it builds in a "trip-wire" necessitating affirmative Congressional action within thirty days. If the President takes emergency action putting the armed forces into hostilities, he must immediately make a full report of the circumstances, authority for, and expected scope and duration of, the military measures he has initiated. If the President is unable to obtain the concurrence of Congress to extend his authority, he must terminate his actions at the end of thirty days. The bill has strict provisions to prevent filibuster or other delays.

"The War Powers Act cannot create national wisdom where there is none. But it can insure that the collective wisdom of the President and the Congress will be brought to bear on the life and death questions of war and peace. The Pentagon papers and the Anderson papers have shown us how dissenting and questioning viewpoints are screened out or excluded, altogether from the present Presidential decision-making process. The real danger to our security today is not that the Congress might hamstring the President. The real danger is that Presidents can—and do—shoot from the hip. If the collective judgment of the President and Congress is required to go to war, it will call for responsible action by the Congress for which each member must answer individually and for restraint by both the Congress and the President.

Jacob K. Javits is New York's senior Senator.

PHILADELPHIA BULLETIN 25 FEBRUARY 1972 (28)

# Studies Say Bombing Fails in Vietnam

## Second of Two Articles

By RAY MOSELEY

Bulletin Washington Bureau

Washington — The United States has now dropped about 6.4 million tons of bombs in Indochina — more than three times the tonnage it dropped in all of World War II and six times the total of the Korean War.

"We have senselessly blown up, bulldozed over, poisoned and permanently damaged an area so vast that it literally boggles the mind," Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.) said on the Senate floor recently.

"I am unable adequately to describe the horror of what we have done there," he said. "There is nothing in the history of warfare to compare with it.

"The cold, hard and cruelony of it all is that South Vietnam would have been better off losing to Hanoi than winning with us. Now she faces the worst of all possible worlds with much of her land destroyed and her chances of independent survival after we leave in grave doubt at best."Bombing Ineffective

There is something else to be said about the bombing. Whatever else it has done, it has not been effective militarily, if all the surveys of the bombing that have been made are to be believed.

The Federation of American Scientists suggests that there is widespread misunderstanding in this country about the effectiveness of strategic bombing, going back to World War II.

Many Americans believe heavy bombing was a decisive factor in bringing Germany and Japan to their knees.

But the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, conducted after the war, concluded that the vast destruction caused by

conventional bombing did not reduce enemy war production to such a point as to affect the outcome of the war decisively.

### 3 Objectives Fail

The major studies of the Indochina air war have been the so-called Jason study, made by 47 leading scientists at the Pentagon's request in 1967, and the Cornell University Air War Study, completed last year, also with Pentagon cooperation.

The Jason study concluded that the air war had failed in each of its three objectives: It did not prevent North Vietnam from sending men and supplies south in sufficient numbers and quantity to keep the war going, it bolstered rather than weakened Hanoi's will to fight and it brought only temporary surges in South Vietnamese morale.

The Cornell study concluded:

"The successes of individual air operations have not, in the aggregate, resulted in major progress toward the achievement of stated U.S. goals in Indochina.

"On the other hand, they have inflicted grevious damage on the nations of the region, leaving a scarred countryside and torn societies for whom the task of political accommodation and reconstruction will have been made not easier but more difficult."

The Cornell study also noted that the Communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese forces now control more Lao-tian territory than before the bombing began.

### Reds Still Move South

Similarly, Leslie H. Gelb, who headed the team that produced the Pentagon Papers, noted recently that the big Communist Tet offen-

sive of 1968 occurred when the bombing of North Vietnam had reached a peak.

And although recent bombing has been heavily concentrated along the Ho Chi Minh trail, U.S. intelligence officers in Vietnam have estimated that 70,000 to 80,000 North Vietnamese troops will have moved into South Vietnam along the trail by April.

Further evidence that bombing is of dubious value comes from a study made by the Pentagon Office of Systems Analysis of results in 1966.

The study said U.S. air strikes provided the enemy with about 27,000 tons of dud bombs and shells, more than enough to make all the mines and booby traps thought to have killed more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers that year.

### Cost $4 Billion a Year

Despite all this, the bombing goes on and the Cornell study estimated that the costs might approach $4 billion a year for the indefinite future.

The Cornell study estimates that 3.99 million tons of bombs have been dropped on South Vietnam, 530,000 tons on North Vietnam, 1.3 million tons on the Ho Chi Minh trail, 430,000 tons on Northern Laos and 150,000 tons on Cambodia.

There is no doubt that the bombing has declined as the war has been wound down. The Cornell study said the total annual tonnage has decreased by more than 40 percent from the 1968-69 peak.

But at the same time, bombing outside South Vietnam is actually on the upswing.

### Air War Refined

In 1971, there were 108 bombing strikes against North Vietnam — an average of

almost one every three days—compared with only 200 in 1970.

Bombing in Laos is more than double the 1968 rate, and Cambodia was not being bombed at all prior to 1970.

In recent years, the air war has been automated and refined to a high degree.

Plans fly over target areas, such as the Ho Chi Minh trail or Plain of Jars, and drop thousands of highly sophisticated sensors that can detect vibrations, sounds, metal objects or heat radiation.

Some sensors imbed themselves in the ground and are disguised to look like jungle plants. Others are dropped by parachute and hang in foliage.

The sensors last about two months and transmit information by radio to receivers located on mountain tops or in planes, some of them unmanned drones.

### Certain Advantages

The signals then are relayed to a central processing post equipped with large computers. The processing posts correlate the information, decide on targets and radio instructions to pilots.

The pilots then punch coded information into computers in their planes. This steers them to the target and bombs are automatically released at preselected points.

"Automated warfare has certain 'advantages,'" the Cornell study observed. "Instructions do not defect. They are not known to take ... drugs. They have no ethical qualms about killing civilians.

"The represent a cheap mercenary army. In the end we will have machines fighting the 'goons' with no human beings involved on either side."

ABC EVENING NEWS,

FEBRUARY 2, 1972

## Peace Plan Comes Under Sharp Attack

REASONER: President NIXON's eight point peace plan came under sharp attack today from Senator Edmund MUSKIE. The Democratic presidential front runner delivered a major foreign policy speech in Washington.

FRANK REYNOLDS: MUSKIE's immediate response to the President's peace plan was cautious but basically positive.

And he believed, criticism of Mr. NIXON would be resented. Now, a week later, he has changed his mind.

SENATOR EDMUND MUSKIE: Most Americans thought they heard the President agree to set a date certain for our withdrawal.

But it is not the genuine date certain so many of us had urged upon him.

He did not offer to exchange our presence in VN for the freedom of our prisoners.

Instead, he laid down additional conditions, in short, in the face of a frustrating deadlock, the President has basically renumbered and reissued the proposals that have failed for six years.

We are still trying to win at the conference table what we have not won and cannot win on the battle field.

REYNOLDS: One week ago, MUSKIE was persuaded that he would suffer a political backlash if he criticized the President's peace plan.

He no longer feels that way and again insists the only way to end the war and recover our prisoners is to withdraw all Americans and leave the SVNese to deal with the NVNese.

MUSKIE now believes that not only would that be wise policy, but is good politics.

REASONER: While Senator MUSKIE has been relatively subdued on the VN issue up to this point, another Democratic presidential hopeful, Senator George MCGOVERN has made it a major part of his campaign.

This week MCGOVERN is campaigning in New Hampshire.

BILL MATTNE: One year and a million dollars later, George MCGOVERN now believes he is finally seeing some momentum in his long campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Here in New Hampshire, MCGOVERN emphasizes first that he is a serious candidate all the way to the last delegate vote in Miami Beach six months from now.

SENATOR MCGOVERN: I think what we have to demonstrate to skeptical people who might want to support me on the basis of my views but who wonder whether I can really win, we have to demonstrate to them that we do have strength where the voters are.

I've got to either come through with a victory or I've got to come through very strong in some of these early primaries.

I don't say I have to win them all or even to win one of them, but I do have to indicate that I'm a serious contender and chat I can draw a heavy vote at the grass roots.

MCGOVERN: I would commit us to a definite date - I would make the same kind of a commitment that the Premier of France once made that if he couldn't meet that commitment, he would be willing to resign.