RADIO - TV
DEFENSE DIALOG

RADIO TV REPORTS INC. WASH., D.C., SUMMARIES NOT TO BE QUOTED.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1972

(BROADCASTS OF OCTOBER 30)

SUMMARY OF NETWORK NEWS IN THIS ISSUE

JOHN CHANCELLOR, NBC-TV, Walter CRONKITE, CBS-TV, and Howard SMITH, ABC-TV, all report the VN peace agreement won't be signed in Paris on October 31 as the enemy is insisting. The White House says at least one more negotiating session is required before the agreement can be signed by the US.

LLOYD DOBYNS, NBC-TV, Peter KALISCHER, CBS-TV, and John ROLFSON, ABC-TV, all report from Paris that Madame BINH, the VC negotiator had a session with the news media talking about the US reluctance to sign the peace agreement. She indicated the stakes would be higher if the US did not sign tomorrow, but she also indicated the peace negotiations would not be terminated if the agreement was not signed either.

RICHARD VALERIANI, NBC-TV, reports that officials at the White House say the peace agreement won't be signed on October 31. Fewer and fewer officials are now willing to talk about the situation and they are being especially tight lipped about the current fate of US relations with SVN.

TOM STREITHORST, NBC-TV, reports on the situation in Saigon where President THIEU has indicated he does not go along with the peace agreement worked out between the US and Hanoi. He refused to talk with news men today about the agreement. However, there is speculation that he is taking the tough stand as a show of strength with the VNese people but that in the end he will sign the agreement or at least go along with it and the cease fire.

BOB JONES, NBC-TV, Walter CRONKITE, CBS-TV, and Frank MARIANO, ABC-TV, all report the war goes on as usual in VN with the enemy carrying out about one hundred attacks in SVN during the past twenty-four hours. All this activity is in anticipation of the cease fire where each side will be able to maintain control over the land they hold at the time. JONES reports the enemy holds part of Highway One just a ten minute drive from Saigon.

JOHN CHANCELLOR, NBC-TV, Harry REASONER, and Frank MARIANO, ABC-TV, all report the US troop strength in VN is being reduced still further. There are now only thirty-three thousand seven hundred men left there and that number will be further reduced by December. However, MARIANO reports that for those GI's still there the war continues as it always has as they patrol around Long Binh.

ERIC SEVAREID, CBS-TV, comments on the peace agreement and the time it is taking to work out the last details. Both sides are trying to work out last advantages and the negotiations may continue for several weeks yet, says SEVAREID. Even the terms worked out in the agreement may not hold for very long SEVAREID speculates and ends by saying, it was their war anyway.

HARRY REASONER, ABC-TV, reports the US Seventh Fleet has been moved below the twentieth parallel and that mining of Haiphong Harbor has also ended.

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NBC NIGHTLY NEWS NBC-TV 6:30 PM

Will Peace Agreement Be Signed

JOHN CHANCELLOR: NVN and the VC demanded again today that the US sign the Indo-China peace agreement tomorrow in Paris.

The US said it would not - that at least one more round of negotiations is required.

Henry KISSINGER said that last week and today both he and Secretary of State ROGERS were in Washington, not in Paris.

SVN attacked both the US and NVN for arriving at an agreement it doesn't like.

And in Paris today, the VC called a news conference to talk about the agreement.

## Enemy Insisting Peace Agreement Be Signed October 31

LLOYD DOBYNS: Since last Thursday, not a day has gone by without some one somewhere insisting that it be signed October 31. Today, it was the turn of the VC's chief negotiator, Madame BINH.

The communist want to keep pressure on Washington to sign the nine point accord and Madame BINH's statement today repeated what has been said before.

That the US is backing out and will be responsible for what happens.

But Madame BINH indicated today that negotiations would go on even if there is no signing.

MADAME BINH: The question is not whether we have time or not but whether we have the good will or not.

If there can't be any signing tomorrow, it is clear that the US should bear the full responsibility for the prolongation of the war and for the continuation of the war.

For the prolongation of the negotiations and the continuation of the war.

DOBYNS: The prolonged negotiations include Thursday's regular peace talks which Madame BINH said she would attend.

But prolonged negotiations may also include more private meetings between Henry KISSINGER and the NVN-ese.

She was asked if private talks would go on, she did not say yes or no.

## White House Says No Signing Tomorrow

RICHARD VALERIANI: Despite the continuing pressure from Hanoi, the White House reaffirmed there will be no signing of a peace agreement with NVN tomorrow.

News secretary Ron ZIEGLER said the situation remains exactly where it was last Thursday.

When presidential advisor Henry KISSINGER insisted one more negotiating session would be required with the NVNese, to settle six or seven outstanding issues before the agreement could be signed.

The Administration is hopeful another private meeting with the NVNese can be arranged quickly once the October 31 deadline is passed.

But sources say there has been no word from Hanoi yet as to when such a meeting might take place.

Administration officials remain generally optimistic that an agreement can be concluded within a matter of weeks.

But fewer and fewer officials are now willing to talk about the situation and they are being especially tight lipped about the current fate of US relations with SVN.

## President Thieu Says He Doesn't Like Peace Agreement

TOM STREITHORST: Every four years the two houses of the SVNese parliament meet in a joint session of investiture of the eighteen man inspectorate.

At the top level governmental watch-dog committee.

The ceremony normally involves a speech by the president and at this critical moment in VNese history, the full diplomatic and press corps were there to see what President THIEU would have to say about cease fire.

In violation of traditional practice, the SVNese president doesn't like the way peace negotiations are going; sat, listened, made no speech got up and left.

Reporters tried to question him on the way out. He said simply, I

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Tuesday, October 31, 1972

am sorry.

We didn't have much more luck
with American Ambassador Ellsworth
BUNKER. One of those who has the
job of convincing the SVNese.

President THIEU doesn't like to
talk to reporters unless he has got
good news. His "I'm sorry" and
Ambassador BUNKER's "I don't know
when I will see the President again"
characterized the impasse in rela-
tions between Saigon and Washington.

A well informed source says that
it is just not a matter of detail
about the cease fire, but prin-
ciple that divides these two allies.

## War Much In Reality Today

CHANCELLOR: In Indo-China today
the war was as much a reality as it
was before the announcement last
week of an impending agreement.

Now, however, there are differ-
ences. The US, in an obvious at-
tempt to display good will toward
NVN has sent much of the Seventh
Fleet, cruisers, carriers and des-
troyers, south of the twentieth
parallel.

And it has also stopped putting
any mines in waters north of the
twentieth parallel - that includes
the port of Haiphong.

In SVN, there was sharp fighting
today for a specific purpose. Each
side wants to sieze as much terri-
tory as it can before the cease fire
takes effect.

Because its troops will then con-
trol whatever is captured, accord-
ing to the terms of the agreement.

BOB JONES: These militia men
are holding the western defense of
Saigon and communist soldiers are
infiltrating around them like
greedy real estate speculators.

It is blatant land grabbing by
small guerilla units as both sides
await orders to either keep fighting
or a cease fire.

The flow of refugees and the
stalled traffic have clogged this
main road. All normal commerce has
been disrupted.

And as villagers by the thousands
inch closer to Saigon, they put a
heavy burden on national security
police trying to screen out VC
agents and potential saboteurs.

The Pong (?) Bridge, it is about
twelve miles west of Saigon, is as
far up Highway One we could get this

morning. NVNese troops moved into
several hamlets and a Cambodian
refugee village just up the road.

The NVNese have now cut off the
highway to Tai Ninh (?) as well as
to Cu Chi (?).

This picture of the homeless and
the dispossed gets a little more
grim each day. The VC are not try-
ing to hold the people in the vil-
lages. They are practically en-
couraging them to fall back toward
the capital.

The captain in charge of this
company gave his men a little pep
talk and sent them off on patrol.

Farther up the road the govern-
ment had called up the special
ranger group to help hold the line.

The fight for territory is now
just a ten minute drive from Sai-
gon.

## US Servicemen Continue Leaving SVN

CHANCELLOR: The number of Ameri-
can servicemen in SVN continues to
decrease.

Last week, three hundred Army
men left the country, leaving
thirty-three thousand, seven hun-
dred behind.

That's the smallest number since
the first American combat troops
went ashore in SVN in March, 1965.

American strength in SVN is
scheduled to drop by December 1 to
twenty-seven thousand Americans.

## CBS EVENING NEWS CBS-TV 7:00 PM

### VN Agreement Won't Be Signed

WALTER CRONKITE: That VN peace
agreement will not be signed tomor-
row.

The White House said today it
does not intend to go along with
NVN's demand that the nine point
agreement be concluded then in
Paris.

But officials say they are still
confident an agreement will be
signed soon, although not until
some issues are cleared up.

For that Washington was caught
in a cross fire of reaction. Sai-
gon Radio said Hanoi is trying to
get President NIXON to agree quickly
to a settlement in exchange for a

3

Tuesday, October 31, 1972

it not to work, it does not especially want it to work.

THIEU's regime will appoint half the members, will have a veto, won't even have to release its political prisoners to weaken THIEU's control.

The council is not seen here even as a prelude to a coalition government.

The VNese situation into which we threw our power years ago remains what it was - a civil war plus a communist directed social revolution, plus a struggle for national unification and independence.

This will go on at low key at some time. But American power, if not American money will be out of it. The ultimate result depends on the strength and social cohesion of the two sides.

As President KENNEDY said in the final analysis, it was their war.

## War Goes On While Nations Talk

CRONKITE: So, while nations bicker and talk, the war goes on.

Frequent communist attacks throughout SVN, increasing SVNese counter-attacks.

Over NVN, another American jet shot down, the two crewmen missing.

But America is easing its pressure on the north. Last week the bombing was called off above the twentieth parallel as a gesture of good will.

Now come unofficial reports that Naval bombardment and the mining of three harbors above there, including Haiphong, also have ended.

## ABC EVENING NEWS ABC-TV 7:00 PM

No Movement In Peace Signing

HOWARD SMITH: There appeared to be no forward movement on the VN peace treaty today. Hanoi is still insisting that the US sign the nine point draft agreement tomorrow in Paris, but the White House said again today there will be no signing without one more negotiating session to clarify some issues.

Saigon Radio charged today that

Hanoi is trying to lure President NIXON into a quick peace settlement in return for a few ballots.

Whatever the US does, the broadcast said, SVN's President THIEU will not sanction what Saigon Radio called, mass suicide by the people of SVN.

Senator George MCGOVERN said today that the President should stop letting General THIEU dictate policy and go ahead and sign the agreement tomorrow.

Communist China also issued a formal statement urging the US to sign an agreement as soon as possible.

## VC Say US Holding Up Signing Of Agreement

SMITH: In Paris today, the VC representative, Madame BINH, hinted at new demands if the agreement is not quickly concluded.

JOHN ROLFSON: Madame BINH did not seem to hope any longer that American representatives would sign the agreement tomorrow. Still she warned of consequences if they don't.

She would not tell us exactly what the VC and the NVNese would do, but for one thing, she strongly indicated they will raise their price for a settlement.

And insist that the US remove President THIEU from power in Saigon.

It is an old demand, but they dropped it to get the present agreement.

Now, with THIEU opposing the agreement, she charged he has proved there can be no political settlement and no peace as long as THIEU is in power.

And she blamed the NIXON Administration for THIEU, charging that its demands for more negotiations is a deceitful pretext aimed at delaying the signing and prolonging the war to consolidate THIEU's power.

So the US can use him to sabotage the peace settlement.

Keeping up the communist pressure for a signing here in Paris tomorrow, Madame BINH said if the war is still going on one day after tomorrow, with VNese children still dying under American bombs and American military men being killed

5

Tuesday, October 31, 1972

and captured, it will be President
NIXON's crime.

We asked repeatedly whether some
delay and some renegotiation would
not be acceptable to the VC and the
NVNese. While Madame BINH would
not give a simple yes or no, she
argued that they could no longer
trust President NIXON. She sug-
gested their price would be higher
and she warned that there would be
other consequences.

US 7th Fleet Stops Shelling NVN

HARRY REASONER: Unconfirmed reports from the war zone today said the US Seventh Fleet had stop-ped shelling enemy targets north of the twentieth parallel.

As the US wound down the air and
sea war against the north, there
was stepped up action by the com-
munist troops in SVN, apparently
trying to take as much territory
as possible before the anticipated
cease fire goes into effect.

The US command reported more
than one hundred enemy attacks to-
day, the fifth straight day that
the fighting has been at that
level.

And for the more than thirty-
three thousand American troops
still in SVN, the war goes on as
usual.

VN War Continues As Usual For GI's
Still There

FRANK MARIANO: Until someone
actually gives the order to stop
the war, these American troops will
continue to do what they have been
doing for some time now.

Going out on patrol. The Army
calls it a reconnaissance patrol,
standard they say to protect Ameri-
can bases against attack.

In this case, the once massive
US complex at Long Binh.

Despite the microcosm if what
the US role has been here in VN in
the past, but in the middle of the
high level peace talks and all the
talk about cease fire, Americans
are more exposed to danger than
meets the eye.

The men in this company, among
the last of the infantry units left
here in VN, patrol as far as two
miles outside of the parimeter wire
looking for enemy troops, booby

traps, rocket and mortar positions
or anything else which might pose
a threat to the base.

The parimeter is extensive.
Nearly twenty miles around. Sky
towers loom every quarter of a mile
or so on the edge of the outer wire.

For the most part, it is a lonely
vigil and uneventful since mid-
summer this year when Long Binh was
last infiltrated by enemy snappers.

The shift goes around the clock.
Six hours, six hours off.

And to add to the anxieties al-
ready produced by peace develop-
ments, the company is slated for
disbanding within three weeks.

When the patrolling will be
turned over to the SVNese.

Most all these men have seen
combat before with units already
returned home as part of the US
withdrawal making them all the more
thankful that only sporadic contact
has been made with the enemy in
the last several weeks.

Yet, despite the closeness of a
peace settlement, that could change
at any moment. And these men know
it.

Tuesday, October 31, 1972

WASHINGTON POST 29 OCTOBER 1972

Out of the Rubble, A New Era?

By Victor Zorza

VIETNAM may yet repay the blood and the treasure it has soaked up all these years and yield a new age of peace and concord for a world that has had its fill of wars. This may seem an almost blasphemous suggestion in the face of all the evil and misery this war has produced, and few people may be ready for it with the tragedy still so close to us. But we should not shut our eyes to it just because it is so startling.

The argument that a bright future may arise from the ashes of war rests on two premises. The first is that the United States, Russia and other powers will join in an unprecedented international program of aid and reconstruction that will prove to be the beginning of a new spirit of cooperation between the advanced nations, and will sow the first real seeds of progress among the developing nations.

The second premise is that the world has long been ready for the transition from the cold war to a global arrangement among nations to live and let live, and that this has been delayed by the poison which the war in Vietnam introduced into the international bloodstream. The opening between the United States and China, and the United States and Russia, as well as the start toward nuclear disarmament made in the missile limitations agreements, would have come long before this year's beginnings if it had not been for Vietnam. With the war over, progress will be far more rapid than it would otherwise have been.

Every big war has been hailed by dreamers and visionaries as the war to end wars. But the men in the Kremlin and in the White House, as well as the men in Peking, who have come together to put an end to the war in Vietnam are hard-headed realists. They acted in their own interests, in the interests of their nations, deciding with the cynicism—or wisdom—typical of great powers that the private interests of the immediate combatants can go hang. They know that "there is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune"—and they decided that the present opportunity is too rare to miss. So they have resolved to stop the war. What next?

Haves and Have-Notes

THE $7.5 BILLION which President Nixon promised last January to contribute toward the rehabilitation of the war-torn nations is a huge sum, much greater than any fund ever made available for a comparable purpose and population. The North Vietnamese government has stressed repeatedly in recent days that it expects a large contribution from the United States, and the White House has confirmed that this will be forthcoming.

The United States, according to Hanol's version of the provisional agree-

ment, "will contribute to healing the wounds of war" in North Vietnam and Indochina as a whole. So will the Soviet Union and China. Although no announcements have yet been made, there is every reason to believe that the joint aid program will marry capitalist money with Communist planning, Western technology with Oriental patience and wisdom, to produce an experiment that may combine the best efforts and talents of both worlds for the benefit not just of Vietnam, but of the Third World as a whole.

Some aspects of the joint aid program have already been discussed privately between the United States and some of the other nations. It bids fair to become a model of development aid by the rich to the poor which, if it succeeds, may provide the solution to the greatest problem facing mankind: how to bridge the growing gap between the advanced and the underdeveloped nations.

Technology and Money

THE diminishing hostility between the established great powers is being increasingly replaced by the embittered confrontation between the have and the have-not nations in a way which threatens the stability of the world more dangerously than any weapon now in the military arsenals. The halting, faltering attempts of the richer nations to stave off the revolt of the dispossessed have often done more harm than good by appearing to buy them off. In Indochina, American blood-money—let's face it, that is what it will be—will be taken not as alms, but as a debt repayment, and will be applied to a regional development plan that combines some of the most advanced ideas on the subject.

The Mekong basin development plan, already on the drawing boards, calls for harnessing the region's rivers to produce electric power, and channeling the waters to irrigate the land and to provide the waterways that will carry the raw materials to keep new industries going. South Vietnam, long the rice granary of Indochina, and North Vietnam, much better endowed with industrial resources, are clearly complementary. No development plan for the area would make sense if it failed to combine the resources of the North and South, and indeed of neighboring countries, into the kind of system pioneered by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Although some of the blueprints are already on the drawing boards, the best laid economic plans go awry when poor nations, starved of resources, try to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. This has been the curse of Russia, and of India, and now of Chile, as their attempts to jump from feudal backwardness into modern efficiency produced political and communal strains that stretched the social fabric to the breaking point.

In recent years, however, the rapid progress of technology in industry as well as in agriculture, the new auto-

mated mass-production techniques as well as the miracle strains that make ten grains grow where once there was one, have laid the basis for a more dramatic breakthrough than any in mankind's history.

Interacting Economics

BUT NEITHER technology nor money will do the trick if the political and social skill is lacking. The developed West, led by the United States, has not been prepared to admit that socialist management devices have something to offer to the poor nations, while the doctrinaire socialists have looked with distrust and suspicion at capitalist advice. But now, with the United States and Russia and China beginning to shed their blinders, with huge trade deals between America and the Soviet Union in the offing, the capitalist and socialist economies of the major powers are going to interact, slowly at first, but at a pace that will grow faster as time goes on.

What is good for the United States and Russia will prove even better for North and South Vietnam and for the underdeveloped countries generally, where the needs and the pressures are so much greater.

Both Washington and Hanol have made it clear that they are looking forward to "a new period of reconciliation" (to quote Henry Kissinger) and that, "together, we must inaugurate a new era" (in the words of North Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong). Both countries "will develop their relations on a basis of mutual respect," moving from past hostility to a new "mutually beneficial relationship." What is this relationship that could benefit two such countries as the United States and North Vietnam?

Vietnam offers, in the words of its premier, to "establish friendship between our two peoples." Friendship? Has the man taken leave of his senses? After all the slaughter, the lies, the torture, the children burned to death? Is he prepared to sell his people's friendship to the United States in return for dollars? That may be one way of looking at it. But there is another. A little history goes a long way. Think back to two world wars. Not only did the United States finance the recovery of Germany, and of Japan—a fiercer enemy, more hated and distrusted in the United States than North Vietnam ever was. It made Japan into the American showpiece in Asia, the inheritor of democratic traditions, and, for a time, its best friend. In Europe, it was the German enemy, not the French ally, that became the closest associate of the United States. American money poured into Germany and Japan. Could something like this happen in Vietnam? It could—and will.

The pattern of the Mekong development plan could—and will—be dupli-

(CONTINUED NEXT PAGE)

7-F

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR.

WASHINGTON STAR & NEWS 29 OCTOBER 1972

Nixon Is Not About to Serve as Executioner

The mysterious developments in Vietnam have the world on edge, and understandably so. The speech by President Thieu, far from clarifying the situation, deepens the mystery. Mr. Thieu is given to extemporaneous speeches, which however well they may succeed in giving the flavor of the man; do not succeed in communicating exactly the situation he finds himself in.

Meanwhile, George McGovern and his boosters (at this point that is the best word for them) are doing what they can to plant an image of the deadlock in the public mind. They are asking us all to believe that the Nixon Administration has achieved an understanding with the North Vietnamese which we might have achieved four years ago, but for Nixon's intransigence.

The McGovern script puts it this way: Richard Nixon, egged on by the bloodthirsty element of the American community, refused to accept terms that the North Vietnamese would gladly have accepted at the beginning of his term of office. Now, anxious to make points with a

public progressively dissatisfied by the war, Nixon has capitulated to the North Vietnamese terms, but is now finding it difficult to bring Thieu around.

These terms (according to McGovern's script) call essentially for the following: Thieu must step down. All American forces must instantaneously withdraw. All the bombing has to stop. A coalition government, composed of two or three elements, only one of them headed by Thieu, will then rule the country. That coalition will eventually precede over elections of some sort or other. Representatives of the coalition will take charge of the provinces and hamlets; and we can then, finally, relegate Vietnam—in the words of Mr. John Kenneth Galbraith—to that obscurity it so richly deserves.

The trouble with the script is that it isn't true. A word on the subject:

Those who believe that Richard Nixon will suddenly, abruptly, alter his policy so as in effect to become an instrument of the North Vietnamese disparage Richard

Nixon to the point of identifying him with the caricatured popularized by such as Herblock. They see him as a scheming, conniving, unprincipled politician who thinks nothing at all of his word.

I say flatly: it is implausible to think this of Nixon. Nixon is not going to dump Thieu. Thieu may go, in the long run, for complicated reasons which may or may not lead to strategically disastrous developments for South Vietnam. The British people, in their wisdom or lack of it, overthrew Winston Churchill at war's end, and, not much later, the French shed Charles De Gaulle. But Nixon is not going to serve as Executioner, surrogate for the Vietnamese people.

Why then did President Thieu give the impression that he was being pushed around? It is hard to say exactly. The Vietnamese are, just to begin with, inscrutable. The advantages of his posture are obvious. He will solidify his position among those of his countrymen who would rather resist and resist, than surrender.

For all that Thieu may

aggravate the House of Commons, the New York Stock Exchange, and Olaf Palme, it is his country he is fighting for, his country that has been brutalized, his countrymen who are threatened by massive retaliation and bloodbaths and tyranny, and the presumption must continue to be, as regards Thieu, that he is acting as one would wish an American leader to act under similar circumstances: with that eternal determination to protect his country and his people from subjugation.

Let the deliberations then go forward, and let us proceed on the following presumptions. One: that Richard Nixon is not engaged in betraying the central commitment of his Vietnam policy. Two: that Thieu will finally balance the prospects at home, with the realities abroad. Meanwhile the apparent anxiety of the North Vietnamese to conclude the grisly war may finally justify the cautious and incantious vaticinations of those who have said, right along: North Vietnam can't keep it up forever.

There are grounds for guarded optimism.

OUT OF THE RUBBLE, A NEW ERA? CONTINUED

cated in the many other areas that are ripe for development, where peoples considered as "backward" by the West as the Vietnamese will be fired by the example of Indochina. In Latin America, in Africa, in other parts of Asia, similar projects and dreams, long shelved for lack of money and political willpower, will be revived.

One example must suffice: The Eisenhower administration's Middle East development proposal that was to harness the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers so that the Jews and the Arabs might once again, together, make those ancient lands flow with milk and honey will not lie dormant much longer. With the departure of the Russians from Egypt, the Middle East has been ready for a political settlement for some time, and the ice will start moving as soon as the American election is out of the way. A Middle East settlement which, I believe, will be on its way within three to six months, cannot be worked out in isolation from great power interests in the area. That means that the navies of the United States and Russia, much to the distress of some admirals in both countries, will have to restrain their enthusiasm for Mediterranean competition, as perhaps the first step in limiting the naval race that is just getting under way.

The Middle East's oil, too, could bring great powers together rather than push them apart. The energy crisis that is beginning to worry the United States will be solved at least in part with supplies from Russia, under

the huge trade deals now being negotiated, and this will form the beginnings of a global fuel policy that must be built on international cooperation rather than competition. The need for the wise husbanding of the world's power resources, including those of the Middle East, Russia and both Americas, will bring the developed and underdeveloped countries together at yet another level, imposing new patterns of cooperation in the interests of all—but primarily, in each case, in their own self-interest.

A Cold Assessment

A PERSONAL DISCLAIMER is in order here. The messianic vision which might seem to underlie this article, the prophetic promise, is not part of my intellectual equipment, and never has been. I have spent too many years observing in the closest detail the often criminal policies of the Kremlin, and the equally self-serving policies of the Western powers, as well as the greed and cupidity of some of the smaller nations, to base my analysis on an idealistic reading of their motives.

For many years I have watched the competition and conflict between the great powers of East and West, and have learned to recognize the self-perpetuating patterns of hostility as they spread in ever-widening circles from the White House and the Kremlin. More often than not, my analysis has led me to forecasts of conflict and discord—as, for instance, when the professional optimists were denying that

Russia would invade Czechoslovakia, and, many years ago, when the professional cold warriors were claiming that there could be no such thing as a Sino-Soviet split.

This analysis, then, does not derive from an inherently optimistic frame of mind, but from a cold assessment of the facts of international life, from a judgment that the self-interest of the great powers imposes on them patterns of cooperation that none can evade. It is not all that original an analysis, for the patterns have become more and more clearly discernible in the movement of ideas and in the flows of power across the continents.

Nor is President Nixon's "generation of peace"—a goal he raised on Thursday to two generations—an invention of the Nixon administration. It would have come, in one way or another, whoever was in power in the White House and in the Kremlin—perhaps sooner with some incumbents, later with others. Many building blocks of the new structure of peace are already in place, too many to discuss them all here, and so are many barriers to progress. Setbacks are still possible, and an informed public opinion will have to watch the political leaders to make sure that they do not make a mess of things, as they have done so often in the past.

There have been golden ages in the past, so historically the notion is not as outlandish as the skeptics will, inevitably, make it out to be. But let the skeptics scoff. Ten years from now, they will be convinced.

© 1972 Victor Zorza

8-F

MONDAY AFTERNOON 30 OCTOBER 1972

LOS ANGELES TIMES 28 OCTOBER 1972 (30) Pg-1

# America's Other Army on March for Higher Pay

## Defense Costs Would Soar Under Proposals to Boost Military Retirees' Salaries

BY RUDY ABRAMSON
Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON—They are teenagers disabled for life, withered survivors of wars almost forgotten, a major general recently released from federal prison, colonels comfortably established in second careers, nearly 4,000 generals and admirals.

They are America's army of military retirees.

By the end of this year, the federal Treasury will be sending monthly checks to 900,000 of them, ranging in age from 17 to 105. Their ranks are growing by 65,000 a year and the annual payroll is already approaching $5 billion.

By 1975, they will number a million, and within 25 years the annual outlay, which totaled $700 million in 1962, will balloon to $20 billion.

Considering recent events, the cost may soar far beyond that.

### 95 Bills for Boosting Pay

During the last Congress, the House Armed Services Committee was inundated with 95 different bills to increase retirees' pay to bring it more in line with the higher pay now being received by active duty military personnel.

One proposal, covered by five individual bills, would have increased the payments by $171 billion over the next 27 years.

Another such proposal, while it failed to win final congressional approval, was adopted at one time by the Senate on an 82-1 vote—without benefit of hearings and with less than three hours of floor debate. Sponsored by Sen. Vance Hartke (D-Ind.), it would have cost $343 million immediately and $19 billion by the end of the century.

Hartke's proposal was debated while nearly all members of the Senate were in Louisiana attending the funeral of Sen. Allen J. Ellender and it was passed after they returned. It would have paid all military retirees on the basis of 1972 active duty pay scales once they reached 60.

### Lonely Dissenting Voice

Almost the only voice raised against it in the Senate was that of Sen. John C. Stennis (D-Miss.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a long-time supporter of the military.

"It would take a collection of experts and computers as high as the Washington Monument to figure out all the complexities that go with this

problem," Stennis said.

"The retirement system has gone forward so fast... I am afraid it will abolish itself by destroying itself, by running away."

Not surprisingly, the flood of litigation was led by proposals from California and Florida congressmen, representatives of military officers' favorite retirement spots.

Members of the California Delegation introduced a total of 27 bills in the House. Rep. Charles S. Gubser of Gilroy introduced seven and Rep. Bob Wilson of San Diego introduced five.

Ten of Florida's 12-man House delegation introduced bills.

Denouncing the cost of another retirement pay increase, Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), a foe of military spending, told the House the rising costs "could become so excessive that in the name of providing decent retired military pay for all retired officers and enlisted men, we may endanger our national security."

People-related costs — salaries, retirement pay and the like—now account for more than half of the Defense Department budget.

Retirement pay, critics maintain, could become the most crucial item in the defense budget if the Administration puts a flat limit on spending.

The secretary of defense can control weapons' costs and he can control active duty personnel costs by reducing the size of the armed forces. But he has no control over spending for retirees' pay once levels have been established by Congress.

Comparing the priorities, Aspin noted that with the additional retirement pay of $134 billion proposed in one bill, the Pentagon could buy 1,480 new destroyers, 134 nuclear powered aircraft carriers or 6,700 of the new F-14 jet fighters.

Said Stennis, "This is a matter that has gotten to the point where it concerns the nation, the national debt and the taxes that people have to pay."

Critics of another adjustment in retirement pay maintain the military retirement system is already the most generous in the world.

### Retire Younger

Military people retire far younger than the government's civil service workers or employes in private industry. On the average,

(CONTINUED PAGE 3)

## PEACE EFFORT STILL CLOUDED. CONTINUED

gent Nguyen Van Thieu's government indicated the possibility of a long stalemate although American officials here tried to indicate the private situation was not that serious.

Foreign Minister Tran Van Lam repeated today the stand which Thieu took last week, summarizing the main objections to a peace package worked out with North Vietnam by Henry A. Kissinger, President Nixon's chief aide in the peace negotiations.

South Vietnam will accept that plan if North Vietnamese troops withdraw from the South, Lam said, and if the "Council of National Reconciliation and National concord" is guaranteed not to become a super-government.

Recent U.S. peace-making efforts have said nothing about recruiting the troop withdrawal. In indicating Thursday the six or seven problems remaining to be worked out, Kissinger did not mention that one.

The council is feared here to be the old Communist demand for a coalition government in disguise. Kissinger spoke of it in terms that ruled out a coalition of power, but Hanoi has talked of it as an "administrative structure," just like—but having some control over—

Thieu's administration.

The North Vietnamese, the Viet Cong and all their Communist supporters from Pyong-yang to Prague spent the weekend asserting that the United States should sign the agreement as it now exists, despite Thieu's objections to it.

### Motives Speculated

Some of these broadcasts have argued that Thieu is seeking to prolong the war on his own. Others have contended that Thieu is only a U.S. puppet and Washington is using him as an excuse and never really intended to end the war here.

Most Communist statements have assumed that the United States could impose unwanted peace terms on Saigon. Thieu has, on the contrary, acted as if he has a veto over negotiations.

American officials cited comments by Thieu on Friday on the need to be flexible as indicating something can be worked out.

American officials here were both groping for an explanation for Hanoi's insistence upon the signing of the draft peace agreement tomorrow. Why the rush?

Some suggested that Hanoi wanted to wrap the deal up before the U.S. elections because it feared once the voting was over President Nixon would be prepared to let negotiations drag.

But a more commonly heard suggestion, particularly among South Vietnamese, was that Hanoi felt it had maneuvered Washington into a good deal from the North Vietnamese viewpoint. It did not want to let the United States slip out of it and demand new concessions.

This was the suggestion of those here who argued, as Thieu did, that the Reconciliation Council was simply a camouflaged coalition.

Thieu said in his report on peace talks Tuesday that North Vietnamese troops "have no right to remain in the South" and added that making sure this happens will be difficult.

The troops "will be 'South-Vietnamized,' given one I.D. card each, and sent to villages and hamlets" when a ceasefire occurs, Thieu said. They will say they are Southerners, or if they speak with a Northern accent they will claim to be refugees who fled the North in 1954 when the country was divided.

2

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

30 October 1972 P1

# Heroin Used by 25 U.S. Embassy Guards

WASHINGTON (UPI).—Twenty-five of the Marines assigned to guard the U. S. embassy in Saigon were found to be using heroin during a one-year period, it was disclosed Sunday.

State Department officials were said to have privately expressed shock at the situation, although a department spokesman said he knew of no security breaches or major incidents involving the heroin-using Marines.

There were incidents, however, of men falling asleep on duty, failing to appear for duty and becoming surly with their superiors.

THE STATE DEPARTMENT said all 25 men were sent back to the United States. Most were allowed to turn themselves in for treatment under the Marine-Corps "exemption" program.

Only three were found to be "drug dependent." The rest were mainly using the drug in its less pure forms.

A contingent of 156 men guards the embassy, but during the one-year period from mid-1971 to mid-1972, with normal rotation of duties, a total of 225 were assigned there. That meant 11 percent of the embassy guards were found to be on heroin.

Most of the heroin users—17—were discovered by new

guard commander, Maj. E. J. Land, who took over in October 1971. Land had previous experience with drug abuse while working with community projects in the United States.

IT WAS ALSO Land who discovered that about half the 17 men were getting their supplies from the same stand.

After complaining to the embassy security officer and a friend with the bureau of narcotics and dangerous drugs in Saigon, Land said the small stand where the drug was sold was moved.

Neither Land nor State Department spokesmen knew whether the pusher was arrested or simply told to move.

Special spot urinalysis checks have since been established in the Marine Corps to discover drug users, and a State Department spokesman said drug abuse was no longer a problem among embassy guards.

LAND, WHO has since been reassigned to the marine base at Quantico, Va., said in an interview he did not feel the pusher selling most of the drugs was acting as a spy.

"I think it was just primarily his location," he said.

There were reports from sources who were in Vietnam at the time that Land complained bitterly about Vietnamese security forces not acting to shut off the flow of heroin.

WASHINGTON POST 30 October 1972 P1

# No Amnesty, Nixon Vows

By Albert B. Crenshaw

Washington Post Staff Writer

President Nixon, saying "it is time to draw the line on this issue once and for all," yester-day repeated his pledge that "there will be no amnesty for draft dodgers and deserters after the war."

Mr. Nixon's statement, made in a nationwide radio campaign broadcast devoted mainly to national defense, was the strongest yet of a basic position the President has repeated a half-dozen times in the past two weeks.

At the same time, however, Vice President Agnew held out the possibility of some form of conditional amnesty after national service or a penalty.

Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst meanwhile, echoing the President's tough words, told Ohio Jaycees that amnesty "would be the most immoral thing I could think of."

In a television interview, Agnew said that, "We do not flatly reject amnesty in the sense that it has traditionally been used in this country."

The Vice President said, "You have to separate amnesty" from unconditional amnesty," which he said Democrat George McGovern advocates, and which "no President in our history has ever given."

"There has always been a requirement of some kind of service," Agnew said, and indicated that amnesty with some sort of conditions attached has not been ruled out.

"For example, after people who have broken the law in evading the draft or deserting have paid their penalties, we do not reject the idea that their citizenship be restored. We don't reject the idea that there shouldn't be amnesty boards that look specifically at

unusual cases on their merits, where there is some excellent reason other than this described moral refusal to join the United States in a fight," he said.

The Vice President, appearing on the program "Issues and Answers" (ABC, WMAL), made his remarks in reply to a question that contrasted the President's recent amnesty positions with statements Mr. Nixon made last spring in which he said he "would be very liberal with amnesty when the war is over and our prisoners are returned."

Agnew said recent statements are "not a reversal" because of the distinction between unconditional amnesty and the qualified type he described.

Asked why Mr. Nixon has not made this distinction himself, the Vice President said, "I don't know why he didn't "I don't say that we wouldn't draw any distinction, but I certainly don't find that draft dodgers are any better than deserters."

Questioned whether the Nixon administration would distinguish between draft-dodgers and deserters, as McGovern has done, Agnew said, "I won't say that we wouldn't draw any distinction, but I certainly don't find that draft dodgers are any better than deserters."

The Democratic presidential nominee, interviewed on television's "Meet the Press (NBC, WRC), emphasized that he 'never at any time' ... advocated amnesty for deserters because in many cases deserters have committed crimes" such as rape and murder.

"I have never advocated amnesty for (deserters) but for those who on grounds of conscience have either gone to jail or who have gone into exile; I have said that once the war is over, and our pris-

owners returned to their homes ... then we should have an amnesty."

McGovern added that while he personally would volunteer for national service if he were a returning draft dodger, "I wouldn't require it" for amnesty.

Mr. Nixon focused on the amnesty issue about two weeks ago when he told a meeting of the families of Americans' held prisoner or missing in Southeast Asia that granting amnesty "would be the most immoral thing I can think of."

Since then, the President has repeated the pledge twice in campaign radio speeches, and Saturday night during a campaign motorcade he told an Ohio family whose son had been killed in Vietnam, "Don't worry about that amnesty, never."

Just how many young men would be affected by an amnesty declaration, or lack of it, has never been clear.

Canadian sources estimate that as many as 60,000 U.S. draft dodgers and deserters have taken refuge in that country. Because Canadian immigration officials do not record the military status of persons entering the country, and because, even if they did, it

would be difficult for them to tell if a draft-eligible man was emigrating primarily to evade the draft, there are no official records.

In addition to Canada, there are a small number on draft dodgers or deserters in Sweden and elsewhere.

During World War II, 15,805 persons were convicted of violating the Selective Service Act. After the war, boards were set up to review these cases, and as a result, President, Harry S. Truman paraded 1,523 of these men on Christmas Day, 1947.

In addition to amnesty Mr. Nixon also spoke on America's defense—"the single-most important issue in this election"—in his radio speech yester-day.

Speaking from the White House library, the President said America must maintain its military strength to maintain peace in the world.

"Strength and resolution command respect. They are an incentive for negotiation leading to peace," Mr. Nixon said.

"But weakness and naive sentimentality breed contempt. They are an open invitation to pressure tactics and aggression leading to war," he said.

Early yesterday, Mr. Nixon met with his campaign surrogates to plan strategy for the closing days of the campaign.

NEW YORK NEWS 30 October 1972 P6

# Navy Confirms Carrier Fire

Washington, Oct. 29 (AP)—The Navy confirmed today that a number of persons were killed and injured in a fire aboard the attack aircraft carrier Saratoga, which has been operating in Indochinese waters.

In response to a question, a Navy spokesman confirmed the report of an accident aboard the ship somewhere around Singapore. The number of casualties was not disclosed.

He did not say whether the ship was at sea or in port when the fire occurred. The spokesman said details of the accident were being held up pending notification of next of kin.

3

EDITORIALS

NEW YORK TIMES - 29 OCTOBER 1972 (30)

Balance Sheet

In trading major concessions to achieve their nine-point accord, North Vietnam and the United States have each attained important national goals: the Nixon Administration has found the formula, if not yet the reality, of ending the Vietnam fighting and arranging a total United States pull out from an ill-fated conflict a decade after we entered it. Hanoi has obtained the chance to acquire the legitimacy and political stature in South Vietnam that it has sought for more than two decades. Both sides have reason for satisfaction in their achievement; the United States for at least short-term consideration, North Vietnam for the long-term potential. Such balance is no small accomplishment and remaining ambiguities should not overshadow what has been achieved, as even Soviet Premier Kosygin acknowledged in urging North Vietnamese and Vietcong envoys to continue negotiations with Dr. Kissinger.

President Nixon made two major concessions. First, he finally accepted the necessity of admitting the followers of Ho Chi Minh into political responsibilities for elections and constitutional development in South Vietnam. Second, he agreed to withdraw American troops from South Vietnam and limit military support to mere replacement of President Thieu's present materiel, without any accord for matching withdrawal of 145,000 North Vietnamese soldiers from positions in the South.

Hanoi's concessions look impressive for the short-run, though they leave the North Vietnamese with clear possibilities for improving their position—militarily and politically—after the United States withdrawal. Hanoi

policymakers dropped their insistence on pinning down a political settlement before accepting a military stand-off. They no longer demanded the disappearance of President Thieu. Indeed, they have even agreed to participate with him in a political process that falls short of a coalition government with full powers.

The workings of the Council of National Reconciliation and Concord are bound to be as cumbersome as its title. This must give Hanoi pause in assessing the value of their hard-won principle of joint responsibilities, just as it worries Saigon politicians to have Communists in any position of legitimacy.

Because the scope of this body is so fuzzy, the United States was able to accept it without specifically acquiescing in a coalition government. It can always be argued that the requirement for unanimity in decision-making by this body gives President Thieu as much of a veto on South Vietnam's future constitutional development as it does to the Vietnamese Communists.

No one need try to claim that a firm foundation for South Vietnamese political stability has been laid in the Hanoi-Washington accord. On the contrary, the potential for disruptive mischief and serious contention is as great now as it has been throughout the Vietnam tragedy.

The essence of the achievement is that it enables the United States at last to terminate its participation in this ruinous war, and it gives the Vietnamese people a chance to devise for themselves their own post-colonial national identity. The bitter irony is that the agreement—as President Thieu evidently suspects—could ultimately lead to the very result that Mr. Nixon and his predecessors have fought so long to prevent: Communist rule over all of Vietnam.

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH - 24 OCTOBER 1972 (30)

Reason On Arms Spending

The shrill reactions of Republicans to Senator McGovern's call for drastic cuts in defense spending imply that the Pentagon's budget should be as reverentially treated as holy writ. Yet above the din of the GOP's military drum beating, there are quiet signals suggesting that many Americans do not regard the Nixon Administration's $80 billion military budget, the highest in peacetime history, as having sanctified status.

An authoritative group which recently endorsed Mr. McGovern's proposed cutbacks in military spending included former Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Warnke, as well as other former officials from the military establishment and the National Security Council. They are not the types to support a program that means, in Defense Secretary Laird's words, "running up the white flag of surrender."

Equally persuasive as an indicator of knowledgeable support for military budget cuts was last year's proposed "Counterbudget," sponsored by the National Urban Coalition, which recommended a reduction in arms spending to a level of $30.4 billion by 1976. (Mr. McGovern suggested lowering the figure to $54.8 billion by 1975.) The Urban Coalition's budget was endorsed not only by citizens concerned with redirecting national priorities to social needs but also by former defense officials and numerous business men, including David Rockefeller of the Chase Manhattan Bank.

Thus the cry of alarm from the American Security Council about Senator McGovern's budget should be heard with a keen ear for detecting the kind of ox that is being gored.

The ASC, whose leadership consists largely of former high ranking military men and prime defense contractors, is a lobby for the military-industrial complex. Its position coincides with the Republican campaign slogan that not only defense but also jobs and the economy depend on an ever higher level of military outlays. Former budget director Charles Schultze, a member of the McGovern panel, has calculated that the Nixon projections will mean a military budget soaring to $100 billion by 1977.

Senator McGovern's proposals, on the other hand, envisage the maintenance of an adequate defense posture, while cutting waste and excessive costs embodied in such unneeded weapons as the B-1 bomber and the unworkable ABM, as well as the budget drain of a larger than necessary military force stationed in Europe. The Nixon ad depicting a McGovern hand sweeping simulated weapons and soldiers from a table really suggests not the intended picture of a disarmed America but the elimination of arms that are being produced merely because the Pentagon and the defense plants are geared up to make them.

As Senator McGovern has pointed out, the American economy has reached a deplorable state if the only way it can maintain employment is to keep military production at continuously higher levels. As a long-time student in the Senate of arms requirements and of the need to prepare for a conversion to peacetime production, Mr. McGovern is proposing ways to begin the process so that the nation can move away from production for destruction and toward the application of its resources and its industry to the neglected tasks of rebuilding its cities, cleaning up its environment and taking care of the health, educational and other social needs of its citizens.

1-E

LOS ANGELES TIMES - 30 OCTOBER 1972

Higher Priority for Europe

The Nixon Administration has by no means ignored this country's relations with its NATO allies during the last four years. But there has been a certain preoccupation with other matters—ending the Vietnam war, negotiating bilateral agreements with Moscow in the areas of trade and arms control, and establishing a rational and civilized dialog with China.

President Nixon has let it be known that Europe will receive a much higher priority in his second term if he is reelected. The shift in emphasis is justified, and probably unavoidable.

It is essential, for example, that the United States and its West European friends work out new trade and monetary relationships that will be more in keeping with the changed economic realities on both sides of the Atlantic.

It is equally important that this country play an intelligent, responsible role in resolving the whole spectrum of issues that will be involved in the European Security Conference.

The Russians, for their own reasons, have been pushing for such a conference for years. A week ago, the Western powers announced their agreement to the proposal that preparatory talks open in Helsinki on Nov. 22. The Russians have agreed "in principle" to the Western precondition that separate but parallel negotiations proceed toward an agreement reducing the American and Soviet troop presence in the two halves of Europe.

There are several reasons for the Soviet interest in a European Security Conference.

Faced with serious internal problems and an unfriendly China in the east, the Russians are seemingly anxious to arrange a period of peace and stability on their western flank.

They wish in the process to gain greater access to West European, particularly German, trade and technology, and to win formal recognition of their "special" position in Eastern Europe.

Western analysts believe that in the longer run

the Russians want the security conference to be the first step toward easing Western Europe away from the U.S. sphere of influence and into their own.

The idea of lessening Cold War tensions in the heart of Europe appeals to the West Europeans, too. So does the prospect of higher, more profitable levels of trade with the Warsaw Pact countries,

In many respects, however, the negotiating goals of the Western powers and, for that matter, those of some East European countries are in conflict with Moscow's.

Romania and Yugoslavia, for example, hope to use the conference as a means of gaining greater security from Soviet attempts to dominate their affairs.

The West, mindful of the intense Soviet interest in the conference, hopes to use the bargaining leverage thus provided on two points especially. One aim is to win Soviet agreement to match the reduction of U.S. troops in Europe with offsetting withdrawals of their own. The other is to extract Russian concessions in the field of greater cultural and political freedom within the Soviet bloc.

The NATO countries' initial bargaining stance, for example, reportedly will include insistence that the Soviet Union recognize the right of Jews or other Soviet citizens to emigrate, that jamming of Western broadcasts be halted and that the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine be renounced.

The Russians look upon such demands as an unacceptable attempt to interfere in their internal affairs. It remains to be seen whether the two sides are so far apart on fundamentals that the conference will die absorbing.

In any event, the United States has a real problem in keeping the Europeans persuaded that, in its anxiety to win Soviet concessions in arms control and troop withdrawals, it will not make bilateral deals with Moscow that are not in the European interest.

NEW YORK POST
27 OCTOBER 1972 (30)

The Weapons Boom

It is true that American aid to the poorer, unindustrialized countries has been cruelly cut in recent years but official Washington has not lost interest in foreign assistance entirely. The Defense Dept. is apparently eager to help out some of the arms-developing nations.

According to fresh reports on the subject, the Pentagon is in the market—to a degree at least—for weaponry designed abroad, such as tactical missiles. Technically, it seems, some European manufacturers have some attractive hardware to offer, all in production after their own research.

The theory is that U. S. manufacturers should be persuaded to seek licenses from the foreign firms, build the equipment here and sell it to the government; domestic development costs would be reduced, U. S. contractors would benefit from assured orders and the Pentagon would be able to steadily improve its inventory.

DALLAS MORNING NEWS - 21 OCTOBER 1972 (30)

No Peacenik
Help Needed

Judging by their reaction to further efforts by antiwar propagandists to represent them in Hanoi, families of POWs do not appear ready to have their grief exploited by people who are using their husbands and sons as peace pawns.

Conventioning in Washington, the families booed mention of the names of Cora Weiss and David Dellinger, the antiwar activists who returned three U.S. airmen to the States recently in a propaganda campaign.

Then they cheered President Nixon on when he promised never to abandon the POWs—and never to grant amnesty to deserters and draft-dodgers.

It is all somewhat new for a country that has been one of the world's principal arms peddlers abroad for so long; whether it is economical remains to be shown.

ers.

Families applauded when one speaker told them, "Most of them (the peace movement leaders) are much more concerned to see Hanoi's objectives fulfilled—not yours."

Cora Weiss and Dellinger, for instance, were trying to take over the mail exchange between prisoners and their families. Families were warned that though another trickle of releases might follow such an agreement, most prisoners would be kept captive for the simple reason that the families are the best thing Hanoi has going for it in applying pressure for a peace based on release of prisoners on its own terms.

The bid by Hanoi and the peace groups to exploit for communist gains the grief of wives and mothers is transparent to all. The POW families appear to realize that identifying their interests with those of their country is the surest way to get their men back again.

3-E

LOS ANGELES TIMES - 29 OCTOBER 1972 (30)

The Cost to America

There are many measures of the cost to America
of the war in Indochina.

More than 45,000 Americans died in combat,
10,000 others in accidents in the war zone. More
than $140 billion in American tax money was in-
vested in the struggle. And there is another price,
not so easily measured, that the nation paid: the
hostility, suspicion, doubt and uncertainty with
which the war poisoned American society.

The men who died are lost forever to the nation. The vast diversion of the nation's wealth was largely spent in the United States itself, and the only salvage for Vietnam will be such office buildings, roads, airstrips and hospitals that can be incorporated into a nation at peace.

What happens now in America, in the search for
new confidence, for a clearer perception of national
objectives and priorities, cannot entirely be dissoci-
ated from what happens in Vietnam. The prelimi-
nary draft of the peace agreement specifies that
"the United States will contribute to healing the
wounds of war and to postwar reconstruction in
the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and through-
out Indochina." To do less would be to erode fur-
ther the sense of responsibility and the commit-
ment to generosity that more often than not have
motivated American foreign policy.

It is evident that the failure of the United States
in Vietnam makes the United States no less a pow-

er in the world. It remains the most powerful na-
tion. To the extent that its influence withered as it
sank deeper into the mire of this war, the nation
will have more strength and prestige now that it
has negotiated an end to the war. The responsibili-
ty of this power cannot be rejected. President Nix-
on has already begun charting a modified and con-
structive course through initiatives with the na-
tion's principal enemies, through a doctrine that is
essentially a return to policies that might have pre-
vented the errors of Indochina.

There is a cynicism abroad in America today,
with roots in the Vietnam war. Old and young, rich
and poor manifest a diffidence uncharacteristic of
the nation. There is an emptiness, a void of prior-
ities and directions that could restore an enthusi-
asm and sense of commitment. The end to the war,
for America, provides the opportunity for a new di-
rection.

It requires imaginative leadership, however. For
great, neglected problems of racial injustice and
poverty and the environment and the quality of life
must be tended to at home, while the very security
of the nation demands a continued commitment to
involvement and leadership abroad.

The country must make certain that this peace
will, in the words of Dr. Henry Kissinger, "restore
the unity that had sometimes been lost" and "be
an act of healing rather than a source of new
division."

ATLANTA CONSTITUTION

27 OCTOBER 1972 (30)

Brass Key I

Exercise Brass Key I. held at Ft. Bragg, N. C. the other day was primarily designed to demonstrate the awesome capability of America's infantry support weapons.

And it was reassuringly impres-
sive.

But what was even more impres-
sive and reassuring to us, was the
obvious capability and dedication of
the men who conducted and took part
in the demonstration.

The Armed Services of the United
States have been badly mauled —
sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly
— as a result of the public's heartache
and soul searching over the Vietnam
War.

But the military has not been
beaten. It may, in fact, have won. Be-
cause when you strip away every ves-
tige of the easy glamor and comfort-
able prestige of any group, the ones
that stick it out are generally the best
of the bunch.

And the best of the bunch is what
we need to keep.

NEW ORLEANS TIMES PICAYUNE - 25 OCTOBER 1972 (30)

Arms Talks Moving
Closer to Goal

The new round of United States-
Soviet Union Strategic Arms Limi-
tations Talks set to begin Nov. 21
at Geneva will bring the two nucle-
ar superpowers closer to their goal:
controlling the arms race to reduce
the chances of a holocaust-war and
to release for peaceful uses the
enormous amounts of money re-
quired to develop and maintain
their nuclear doomsday systems.

The three-year-long first round
was both a psychological and a
practical success. Serious negotia-
tions, as equals, were proved possi-
ble on a subject with truly scary
implications for national survival.
And the agreements reached — an
offensive missile freeze and an "ap-
proved" missile defense system for
each side — were responsive to the
questions under discussion.

The second round, expected to be
perhaps more difficult but poten-

tially as successful, will refine the
present agreement and tackle the
problem of weapons systems not
covered by them.

These are bombers and subma-
rine systems, exactly the superex-
pensive systems each side would
like to be able to forego if it can do
so without damage to its security.
The estimated price tag on the pro-
posed new Trident submarine sys-
tem is $30 billion, and the proposed
B1 bomber is currently down for
$445 million for preliminary devel-
opment.

This round will be tough going.
The Soviets are far behind in bomb-
ers — numbers and forward bases.
And submarine missile fleets cur-
rently beyond constant, detailed
monitoring by the other side serve
both as the ultimate deterrent.

But both sides are in the same
basic situation — sufficiently
armed and equally threatened. So it
seems reasonable at the very least
to assume they can strike a fur-
ther, more substantial bargain.

4-E

FEATURES COLUMNISTS

Joseph Alsop

BALTIMORE SUN 30 OCTOBER 1972

If Hanoi follows peace pact, U.S. will have attained victory

Washington.

The basic question about the remarkable deal with the North Vietnamese, brilliantly negotiated by Henry A. Kissinger on behalf of President Nixon, is grim simplicity itself. Will the North Vietnamese try to cheat, as they instantly began to cheat after signing the agreement on Laos with Ambassador W. Averill Harriman in 1962?

If Hanoi does not cheat, the American objective in Vietnam has been attained. "Self-determination for South Vietnam" was that objective, as defined by President Nixon. The conquest of South Vietnam was Hanoi's objective. Under the terms of the agreement, no renewed attempt at conquest can be made by Hanoi, except in flat violation of the published agreement's terms.

This is true, moreover, despite the agreement's failure to deal specifically with the presence in South Vietnam of about 100,000 North Vietnamese troops. The point here is that the northern troops in South Vietnam might as well be naked bodies, instead of soldiers, unless they can be continually supported and supplied from the North.

With the sole exception of South Vietnam's most northern province, Quang Tri, there is no way on earth to supply and support the North Vietnamese soldiers in South Vietnam without grossly violating the terms of the agreement. This is because the Hanoi government has undertaken to liquidate its vital supply lines through Laos and Cambodia.

To quote the North Vietnamese instead of Dr. Kissinger:

Foreign countries shall put an end to all military activities in Laos and Cambodia [and] will totally withdraw from and refrain from reintroducing into these two countries troops, military advisers and military personnel, armaments, munitions and war material.

This was why the wise head of the Laotian government, Prince Souvanna Phouma, cried out when he first read the draft agreement in Vientiane: "This is victory! They have been crushed!" If President Nguyen Van Thieu were a less cautious and phlegmatic man, he might well have

responded in the same manner.

For it takes no less than 70,000 North Vietnamese military and para-military personnel on the ground, merely to maintain and keep open the crucial supply line through Laos to Cambodia and South Vietnam. If the North Vietnamese genuinely mean to keep their promise to withdraw from Laos, therefore, they can only mean to fade away from South Vietnam at the same time. This is what Ambassa-

dor Henry Cabot Lodge long ago predicted.

If the North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam are to be withdrawn—or even abandoned to their own devices—that writes "finis" to the North's long, hideously costly effort in South Vietnam.

The Saigon government controls over 90 per cent of the population and has an overwhelming local preponderance of military power. The Viet Cong are an eroded remnant, with little of their former popular support. For

the Viet Cong, in short, all depends on Hanoi continuing to do what Hanoi has promised to cease doing.

Hence the vital importance of the question as to whether Hanoi means to cheat this time, in the flagrant way that Hanoi cheated after the 1962 agreement. The answer to the question looks decidedly hopeful, too.

First of all, the mere course of the negotiations has much bearing on the question. In July, Le Duc

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR 28 OCTOBER 1972 (30)

Pentagon jubilant
over peace moves

By Dana Adams Schmidt

Staff correspondent of
The Christian Science Monitor

Washington

The military and civilian hierarchy in the Pentagon was jubilant Friday over the prospect for ending the war in Vietnam.

"It is as though a great weight had been lifted from our shoulders," one of the top officials declared. He saw a statement made by Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird at a NATO nuclear planning meeting in London that American aircraft were now refraining from bombing the area north of the 20th parallel as evidence of United States good faith. This exempts most of North Vietnam except for the southern panhandle for American bombing.

North Vietnamese insistence that the United States sign the peace agreement for Saigon, he said, though seemingly a technical question, had great significance for the North Vietnamese. Hanoi is anxious to drive home the idea that the South Vietnamese Government is nothing but a lackey of the United States. He speculated this might lead to some delays.

On the other hand, the official pointed out if the South Vietnamese do not sign, it may be difficult to hold them to the agreement. This kind of problem did develop after the 1954 Geneva agreement which was not signed by the South Vietnamese although they did attend the Geneva Conference.

Particularly deep satisfaction was expressed by the Pentagon official over the prospect that the North Vietnamese would withdraw from Cambodia and Laos, which is implicit in Point Seven of the nine-point plan broadcast by Hanoi Oct. 26.

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger confirmed in his statement that the agreement called for the North Vietnamese forces' withdrawal from Cambodia and Laos, although they will remain in place in South Vietnam.

The plan broadcast by Hanoi speaks only of respect for the "security and sovereignty" of

Cambodia and Laos, the official explained, because North Vietnam has never admitted that it had troops in those countries, and could therefore only indirectly agree to withdraw them.

"This is fantastic," the official said. "If they really do get out of those countries. I can see real hope for long-term peace in that area because it would be difficult for them to resume the Vietnam war without their bases in the neighboring countries."

Pentagon spokesman Jerry Friedheim estimated Friday that there are 200,000 of the enemy in South Vietnam, including 125,000 North Vietnamese. In Cambodia, he estimated 60,000 and in Laos 120,000 of the enemy, including both North Vietnamese and local troops.

Reports not confirmed

Mr. Friedheim would not confirm reports that the United States was rusing the delivery of sophisticated aircraft and other weapons to South Vietnam in order to beat the expected cut-off of new supplies that will go into effect when the agreement is signed by the United States and North Vietnam. After that, replacements are to be on a one-to-one basis only.

Behind the agreement, according to the Pentagon official, lies a fundamental change in the attitudes of the Soviet Union and Communist China. The leadership of the Soviet Union, he said, does not regard Southeast Asia as a vital interest to the extent that it was so regarded in the time of Premier Krushchev.

Quite apart from the difficulties of supply imposed by the American bombing and mining, the Russians some months ago, told the North Vietnamese, according to information reaching this official, that they would not replace the losses suffered by the North Vietnamese in their largely unsuccessful campaign which began in MAY. The losses, he estimated, included 400 tanks.

As for Communist China, the official expressed the view that the Chinese were more interested in "rejoicing the world" than in making continued contributions to the war in Southeast Asia.

1-F

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

WALL STREET JOURNAL 30 OCTOBER 1972

# The Truce: China and Russia's Role

By ROBERT KEATLEY

WASHINGTON — That wise old man who administers China has reaffirmed his strong support for Hanoi's "solemn and just stand" for ending the Vietnam war.

Well he might. For Premier Chou En-lai helped push a balky North Vietnamese leadership into seeking largely made-in-America terms which should halt gunfire throughout Indochina.

But Mr. Chou did not push alone. Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, too, has let his country make clear that Moscow also wants Vietnam peace more than it desires prolonged Vietnam war; for the Russians also, proletarian solidarity has its limits in practice, if not in theory.

It all represents a dramatic turnaround in big power relationships since the Nixon-Kissinger team began directing U.S. foreign policy, and revising the priorities. Earlier Washington often found itself leaping into little wars (and making them bigger) to hold back the red tide of communism; now it deals directly with big Communist powers to end little wars before they cause more trouble for everyone.

"It's a remarkable, almost incredible, change," says a White House expert on such things.

Hanoi, of course, is where the change was noted most—if with considerable disgust. North Vietnam's freedom to criticize big friends is limited; it needs their aid. But official statements have made it clear that Hanoi opposes detente, that it feels the big nations are selling out the Communist cause to pursue selfish national interests. (That these nations may believe Hanoi's demands for unlimited support are also rather selfish is most likely an unthinkable thought.)

This disgust burst into print in Hanoi after Mr. Nixon journeyed so joyously to Peking and Moscow earlier in the year. "... if out of the narrow interests of (its own) country one tries to help the most reactive force to avert the dangerous blows, just like throwing a life-belt to a drowning pirate, that is a cruel (form of) recognition, beneficial to the enemy and detrimental to the cause of revolution," complained the official party paper, Nhan Dan.

More pungently, it concluded, "The road of revolution is full of fragrant grass and flowers; opportunism is a stinking swamp."

## Opportunism or Pragmatism?

But what strikes Hanoi as opportunism is mere pragmatism to both Peking and Moscow. Leaders in both capitals see the world changing, and they have diverse reasons for wanting closer relations with the U.S. Thus both refused to let ideological loyalties interfere with developing rapprochement; in fact, both apparently saw excessive loyalty to Hanoi as endangering their new ties with the U.S. Certainly, Mr. Nixon tried to make it seem so.

"We do not ask you to sacrifice your prin-

ciples, or your friends," he preached to Moscow last May, after North Vietnamese divisions armed with Russian guns invaded the South. "But neither should you permit Hanoi's intransigence to blot out the prospects we together have so patiently prepared. ... We are prepared to continue to build this relationship. The responsibility is yours if we fail to do so."

This televised speech came on the eve of the Moscow Summit, where the Russians hoped to wrap up an arms control agreement, scientific exchanges and—increasingly important—some trade pacts. An incident at the time illustrates how Russians view their priorities.

One viewer of the speech, which announced the mining of North Vietnamese ports and warned the Soviets that the detente was in trouble, was the visiting Russian Trade Minister, dining that night at the home of Commerce Secretary Peter Peterson. After hearing Mr. Nixon's tough words, he turned to his host and said: "Well, let's get back to business." And a couple of days later he posed happily with the President, a clear signal to Hanoi that Moscow put its own interests first.

When Moscow put the summit proceed despite the mining, any doubts Hanoi had about Soviet intentions must have vanished for good. But to drive it home a bit more, Russian propagandists—talking with American newsmen along on the Moscow trip—privately berated Hanoi for trying to sabotage cooperation between the superpowers. As intended, such talk got into print.

China's known pressure has appeared discreetly. For example, Premier Chou used a state banquet to cite political talks between the two Koreas, and his own conversations with Japanese leaders, as examples for others to follow. Such efforts "to settle reasonably their mutual disputes have become an irresistible trend," he noted rather pointedly to the assembled diplomats, including North Vietnamese.

More concrete evidence followed the Halophong mining. Though Peking eventually let some Russian ships carrying goods for North Vietnam use South China ports, it never permitted massive transit of Chinese territory by Soviet planes and rail cars. The Sino-Soviet split was not about to be mended for Hanoi's sake despite Vietnamese appeals for Communist unity. And neither big Communist power, of course, tried to crash the American blockade.

Not known, of course, is what Moscow and Peking said privately to Hanoi's leaders. But it seems logical to assume that they stressed political settlement more than endless war; and their message probably got across.

Russian motivations have become obvious in recent weeks. A disastrous harvest has caused Moscow to buy some 28 million tons of foreign grain, much from America. A lagging economy also needs Western capital and tech-

nology, Moscow has decided, and the U.S. is in the prime (hoped for) supplier of control and other security negotiations. It increases attractively to the Kremlin and again the United States is the main participant. Pursuing these goals began to seem more important than arming the North Vietnamese indefinitely.

Some Chinese motives also are clear. Peking's main security concern is the Soviet Union, which keeps some 42 divisions along the Chinese frontier. More cordial relations with Washington must seem, to Peking, to be a restraint on Russian leaders, who probably aren't considered to be completely rational by sophisticated Chinese.

## Regaining Taiwan

Peking must rate regaining Taiwan, which it considers an offshore province higher than supporting a continuous war. Germany, the conflict over doesn't mean the United States will somehow hand over the island it protects, but Washington has promised to withdraw the 9,000 G.I.s based there after the war ends—and China wants them out. In addition, desire for American trade and technology probably is a consideration in Peking, though not deemed nearly as important as in Moscow.

All this obviously—and with reason—made Hanoi feel abandoned. Not totally of course; both Communist powers still send some arms and civilian goods, and most likely will never stop completely. Likewise, their rhetoric still backs North Vietnamese positions and says few good things about the U.S. We shall continue to broaden the movement of solidarity with the heroic people of Vietnam and act on the side of the just cause of the Indochinese People," vowed Soviet Cosmonaut German Stepanovich Titov the other day.

And there is little doubt that both Peking and Moscow prefer a Communist government in South Vietnam to a Thieu-type regime. But there are distinct limits on just how much either will do to spread the Leninist cause; both prefer policies which put first things first.

Thus Hanoi felt forced to separate military issues from political ones—despite years of insisting otherwise—and to strike a deal with Washington. It still must hold long-range goals of communizing South Vietnam, and arranging unification on its own terms. But it has reluctantly concluded that force alone won't succeed, partly because its alien refuse to cooperate completely. Hanoi's growing military and economic difficulties are also important parts of the equation, of course.

This means the American part of the war is ending, and can no longer interfere with associated other U.S. diplomatic endeavors. To Mr. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger, the final arrangement must seem a great triumph for the big-power policies they love so well.

Mr. Keatley, a member of the Journal's Washington bureau, covers diplomatic affairs.

BALTIMORE SUN 29 OCTOBER 1972 (30)

## U.S. supplies to Vietnam rise

Saigon — The United States has stepped up its delivery of war materiel to South Vietnam, it was learned yesterday.

But informants said it is releasing hundreds of GI's from Vietnam duty as much as 2½ months in advance of normal rotation dates to get them home for Christmas and to reach the 27,000-man ceiling by December 1.

More CSA Galaxy cargo planes have been arriving at Tan Son Nhat Air Base in Saigon in the last few days than in previous weeks, unloading armored personnel carriers and other war materiel.

The cargo planes are said to be flying from bases in the eastern United States, including Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

Sources said the equipment is to replace that lost during the seven-month North Vietnamese offensive.

NEW YORK TIMES 29 OCTOBER 1972 (30)

## F.B.I. Investigating Theft of Ammunition From Army

LOUISVILLE, Ky., Oct. 27 (Reuters)—The Federal Bureau of Investigation said today that it was investigating the theft of thousands of rounds of ammunition from the nearby Fort Knox Army reservation.

The chief of the Louisville Police Department, Col. Edgar

Paul, said he had been told by the F.B.I. that at least one of his officers was implicated in the case.

Bureau officials told newsmen that as many as 20 city policemen, some of them commanding officers, had purchased the stolen ammunition.

They said the policemen had purchased 77,000 rounds of ammunition that had been stolen from the ammunition dump at Fort Knox.

8-F

RADIO - TV
DEFENSE DIALOG

MONDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1972 (BROADCASTS OF OCT 28)

PART I

ROGER MUDD, CBS: Whatever progress there was for the cease fire in VN was made behind the scenes today. The VC joined Hanoi in saying it wants the agreement signed next Tuesday. MARVIN KALB, CBS: Diplomatic dispatches from Saigon suggest President Thieu is preparing to compromise and accept the basic outline of the peace formula. In talks with American officials his tone has become softer, his approach more flexible. In part this is the result of American pressure, in part Hanoi's pressure.

GARRICK UTLEY, NBC: There are also indications from Washington of secret contact between the United States and NVN this past week, and that Hanoi's position is not so rigid in private as it appears to be in public, but still there is no word at all about a final meeting between Henry Kissinger and the NVNese to wrap up the settlement. ARTHUR LORD, NBC: Political allies of SVNese President Nguyen Van Thieu with encouragement from the palace, have arranged a number of public demonstrations to show support for the government. This rally was an all night affair that took place in Gia Dinh. Most of those attending were young people, members of the irregular militia, who were ordered by their commanders to go.

MUDD, CBS: The pace of the fighting stepped up in SVN today, mainly around Saigon, but officials do not expect any major threat against the city itself. Enemy ambushes cut Highway One both north and south of the city, along with Highway 13 and several smaller roads. The reason for the step-up in fighting is what they're calling "The Battle of the Flags," each side trying to grab as much land and plant as many flags as possible before the fighting ends. RICHARD WAGNER, CBS: A week ago this was a village, one untouched during all this lengthy war. Now it's a shattered ruins. NVNese troops occupied it about a week ago. SVNese forces on the ground could not dislodge them. So, the SVNese AF obliterated the village of Phu Chon. It was done in case there is an in-place cease fire, one in which physical possession means military and political control. Now there is no village of Phu Chon for any side to claim as its own. Nobody wins and the losers are the people of Phu Chon. One man said, "We care for nobody. We don't care who is the leader, who is the king or who is the general. The people are unchanged. They still plow the fields and they are still poor. We have no other desire than to live next to our rice fields in peace." On the question of the final outcome, a villager had this to say, "With the present government we have paid taxes. With the communists we shall pay taxes. So, what does it matter? Which government gives but doesn't take? In fact the people give and the government takes no matter who the government is."

UTLEY, NBC: When a cease fire comes a major weapon on both sides will be flags. When the shooting stops each side will try to claim as much land as possible by putting flags in every village, hamlet and farmer's hut. It'll be the biggest thing of its kind since the great Oklahoma land rush. BOB JONES, NBC: Overnight SVN is being transformed into a nation of Betsy Rosses, turning out flags in home sewing shops and factories for the coming battle of the banners with the VC. Flags are going up everywhere by government decree. Each household must have two and a third must be painted on a building. Each citizen over 15 years of age has been ordered to carry a small flag along with his identification card. Carrying blue or red cloth material is now forbidden. That's the emblem of the VC, and possession of the other side's flag can mean the death penalty. The VC response to the flag campaign is bullets. There were no government soldiers to protect the people; flags are no match for bullets. UTLEY: Today communist forces moved into and held at least seven hamlets around Saigon.

PREPARED BY THE AIR FORCE (SAFAA) AS EXECUTIVE AGENT FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE TO BRING TO THE ATTENTION OF KEY DOD PERSONNEL MATTERS WITHIN THEIR OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITIES,

PART I

CBS EVENING NEWS CBS-TV 6:30

OCT 28

VC Want Cease Fire By Tuesday

ROGER MUDD: Whatever progress there was for the cease fire in VN was made behind the scenes today. There were no announcements from the major capitals.

But the VC joined Hanoi in saying it wants the agreement signed next Tuesday.

Paris reports say the communists expect Secretary of State William Rogers to do the signing, not negotiator Henry Kissinger.

The big question seems to be when, another, whether SVN's President Thieu will go along.

Marvin Kalb reports on that point from Washington.
MARVIN KALB: Diplomatic dispatches from Saigon suggest President Thieu is preparing to compromise and accept the basic outline of the peace formula.

The NVNese now tell visiting Americans in Paris that the US has arbitrarily changed its negotiating terms concerning Saigon's role.

Professor George Cayon (?) talked with them yesterday.

PROFESSOR: They're startled to find a unilateral change, as they see it, of the rules of diplomatic engagement, particularly the condition that any agreement be signed by and agreeable to the Saigon Government beforehand, because they insist that there had been an explicit understanding prior to this last round of very important talks that began on October 8, to the effect that the United States on the one hand and Hanoi on the other, were negotiating as agents for and with the concurrence of their respective major allies.

KALB: The administration expected such pressure but officials continue to express complete confidence that Henry Kissinger will meet once again with the NVNese, probably next week, and that five big powers will guaran-

tee the VN settlement: Russia, China, Britain, France and the United States.

Marvin Kalb, CBS News, Washington.

Fighting Steps Up In SVN

MUDD: The pace of the fighting stepped up in SVN today, mainly around Saigon, but officials do not expect any major threat against the city itself.

Richard Wagner reports on what happened to one hamlet.

RICHARD WAGNER: A week ago this was a village, one untouched during all this lengthy war.

Now it's a shattered ruins.

NVNese troops occupied it about a week ago. SVNese forces on the ground could not dislodge them. So, the NVNese AF obliterated the village of Phu Chon.

The people who fled their village when the NVNese began to operate in the area are living in makeshift shelters just a mile from Phu Chon.

When we talked to them they said they were aware that a cease fire could come soon, but that it was too late for them.

2 Monday, October 30, 1972

PART I

As we spoke with the people of
Phu Chon, another village about a
mile away was being blasted by the
SVNese AF. Another someplace becom-
ing a noplace in case of an in-place
cease fire.

The people of Phu Chon were more
fortunate than many of the SVNese
people who have lost their homes in
this long war; they had a warning
and were able to save many of their
possessions.

Now, with talk of peace, they say
they don't care who wins; they just
want it finally to be over.

Richard Wagner, CBS News, 23 miles
from Saigon.

NBC SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS NBC-TV 6:30

Washington Confident Of Peace

GARRICK UTLEY: The silence sur-
rounding peace efforts reverberated
today between Hanoi, Washington and
Paris.

If something is being done to
overcome the remaining obstacles to
a settlement, no one is talking
about it.

NVN offered no new statement to-
day, or even any criticism of the
delay in the signing of the proposed
agreement.

In Washington the official posi-
tion is still confident that the
settlement will be signed, though
not necessarily next Tuesday as Hanoi
has demanded.

There are also indications from
Washington of secret contact be-
tween the United States and NVN this
past week, and that Hanoi's position
is not so rigid in private as it ap-
pears to be in public, but still
there is no word at all about a final
meeting between Henry Kissinger and
the NVNese to wrap up the settlement.

The silence in Washington and
Hanoi though is not matched in Saigon
There President Thieu is organizing
noisy demonstrations and making sharp
speeches against a settlement.

Arthur Lord went to one.

ARTHUR LORD: Political allies of
SVNese President Nguyen Van Thieu

This rally was an all night affair
that took place in Gia Dinh, a popu-
lar Saigon suburb.

They listen to patriotic music,
chanted anti-communist slogans and
heard a lot of long-winded speeches
from local officials on the evils of
communism.

The highlight of the ceremony was
a bonfire where NVNese and VC flags
were ripped apart and burned. The
people who organized the rally issued
a statement saying they were against
coalition with the communists,
against the tripartite government
and that the NVNese should get out of
SVN.

Thieu's speeches, when he makes
them, have become long and disjointed
This one inside the palace for pro-
government legislators lasted more
than an hour and was delivered off
the cuff.

Thieu never mentioned the 9-point
peace package by name, but shot down
most of the key provisions in it.

He also said any peace settlement
without his signature on it would
be meaningless.

He rarely grants interviews any-
more, preferring to let other govern-
ment spokesmen explain his position.

The President said that there was
no agreement. What really did he
mean by that?

SVNESE: That the President said
that -- he didn't say there is no
agreement, he said that we are now
in the "cut the patient" stage, that
we fear and he was stating that
the Americans that we are discussing
between our side, and so that our
side can discuss with the other side.

LORD: In playing the game of
international diplomacy, Thieu has
to put up a strong front to maintain
credibility with his supporters,
even if in reality he doesn't hold a
card in his hand.

It's clear that the SVNese and
the Americans don't agree on how
close we are to peace, but the SVNese
still depend on the Americans for all
their military support and most of

3 Monday, October 30, 1972

PART I

their economic aid, and how much
leverage the United States is willing
to use on its ally to gain peace
remains to be seen.

Arthur Lord, NBC News, at the
presidential palace in Saigon.

UTLEY: The VC and Saigon Radios
waged their own duel today.

A VC broadcast said the communists
would obey the terms of the proposed
settlement and that there would be
no reprisals.

Saigon Radio called the cease
fire merely a breathing spell for
the communists to prepare to re-
sume fighting at a later date.

## Flags Major Weapon In Cease Fire

UTLEY: When a cease fire comes
a major weapon on both sides will
be flags, the SVNese Flag on the top,
the VC Flag with a star in the middle

When the shooting stops each side
will try to claim as much land as
possible by putting flags in every
village, hamlet and farmer's hut.
It'll be the biggest thing of its
kind since the great Oklahoma land
rush, and Bob Jones reports on prepa-
rations for it.

BOB JONES: Overnight SVN is being
transformed into a nation of Besty
Rosses, turning out flags in home
sewing shops and factories for the
coming battle of the banners with the
VC.

In 1954 the victorious VietMinh
even painted their flag on trees.
The Saigon Government is using the
conjunctural advantage to turn out
three million feet of flag material
on short notice.

Flags are going up everywhere by
government decree. Each household
must have two and a third must be
painted on the building.

Flags have sprouted on the small
Lambretta motor cars which are the
rural buses of VN. Even farmers'
oxcarts fly yellow banners with red
stripes, an extra flag painted on
the cart itself for good measure.

Soldiers have been instructed to
replace old, faded flags with new
ones, especially in this contested
area Binh Duong Province. Police
enforce the decree.

Carrying blue or red cloth materi-
al is now forbidden. That's the
emblem of the VC. And possession of
the other side's flag can mean the
death penalty.

The VC response to the flag cam-
paign is bullets. Hand to hand
fighting has broken out in hamlets
only ten miles from Saigon. Guerril-
la squads are infiltrating all around
the capital to stake their own
claims.

Skyraider planes were dive bomb-
ing VC positions only a mile from
this village where new government
flags were being hoisted on the
building.

On Highway 13, the main route
into Saigon, the VC were creating
temporary panic, opening up with
rifle fire and grenades, putting
hundreds of refugees to flight.

There were no government soldiers
to protect the people, flags are
no match for bullets.

The people are getting out of the
villages, the VC are freely moving
in.

Bob Jones, NBC News, on Highway
13, SVN.

## Communists Hold Hamlets Near Saigon

These attacks are not a direct
threat to the city itself but could
leave the capital surrounded by VC
once a cease fire is ordered.

## President Vows No Amnesty For Dodgers

UTLEY: Mr. Nixon went out cam-
paigning to Ohio and Michigan, and
along his motorcade route in Ohio
the President vowed that he would
never grant amnesty to those who
dodged the draft.

When he saw a sign in the crowd
saying, "No amnesty," Mr. Nixon
said, "Don't worry, they are never,
never going to get amnesty."

NBC Sunday Night News was pre-empted.

4

Monday, October 30, 1972

RADIO - TV
DEFENSE DIALOG

MONDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1972 (BROADCASTS OF OCTOBER 27)

PART
II

MARVIN KALB, CBS-TV, Bernard KALB, NBC-TV, and John ROLFSON, ABC-TV, all report there may be another meeting between the enemy negotiators and Dr. KISSINGER - the enemy saying at a news conference in Paris that that meeting could be before Tuesday, October 31, on that day or any time thereafter, but only on the basis that the peace agreement is signed on October 31 by the US. The only thing holding up peace now is the point of a pen on paper and Hanoi says the US must pick up the pen.

BURT QUINT, CBS-TV, Tom STREITHORST, NBC-TV, and Frank MARIANO, ABC-TV, all report that President THIEU, even though he is taking a strong stand against the peace agreement in total, will in all probability sign the agreement. A rally was held in his support in Saigon with top government officials leading the demonstration to the palace steps.

WALTER CRONKITE, CBS-TV, Bob JONES, NBC-TV, and Howard SMITH, ABC-TV, all report the ground action in the war may end on a bang. There were over one hundred enemy strikes in SVN, mostly in the Saigon area. Two US GI's were killed and four wounded in the latest war action.

RICHARD VALERIANI, NBC-TV, reports that there was no official reaction to Hanoi's response to Dr. KISSINGER's comments about the peace agreement. Intelligence sources indicate the enemy is eager to settle the war because they are hurting militarily, however, the US is not hurrying into any settlement.

JOHN CHANCELLOR, NBC-TV, reports President THIEU said he would like to see the United Nations involved in supervising a referendum in VN. The General Secretary of the UN has indicated they would be willing to assume such a role.

JOHN CHANCELLOR, NBC-TV, reports Secretary of Defense left London on Friday for an undisclosed destination. His aides would not say where he was going.

JOHN CHANCELLOR, NBC-TV, reports the Defense Department did not deny that arms shipments to SVN are continuing and possibly being speeded up in anticipation of the cease fire. The Defense Department also said a settlement of the VN war will not produce a dramatic reduction in this year's defense budget.

ROY NEAL, NBC-TV, reports on what procedures are being prepared for the home coming of the POW's, some of whom have been prisoners for over seven years. Both medical and psychiatric doctors have talked with the families of the POW's in trying to prepare them for what to expect upon their loved one's return. Several hospitals are being prepared to handled the returning men; the Travis Air Force Base being the central point.

JOHN CHANCELLOR, NBC-TV, reports the Air Force indicated they may call off the search for Representative Hale BOGGS in Alaska.

HOWARD SMITH, ABC-TV, reports the Soviet Union has indicated they hope for a speedy peace settlement in VN.

HOWARD SMITH, ABC-TV, comments on the peace agreement saying it could not have come four years ago nor four weeks ago. Hanoi has just agreed within the past few weeks to some of our requirements for peace in VN.

PREPARED BY THE AIR FORCE (SAFA) AS EXECUTIVE AGENT FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE TO BRING TO THE ATTENTION OF KEY DOD PERSONNEL MATTERS WITHIN THEIR OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITIES.

PART II

OCT 27

Another Meeting May Come For Peace

WALTER CRONKITE: Yesterday, Henry KISSINGER said he needed only one more session with NVNese negotiators to work out final details of a peace agreement.

And he said Hanoi could name the time.

Well, today, NVN said its officials will be happy to meet with KISSINGER next Tuesday in Paris.

But, they said, they don't want to talk. They want to sign the nine point treaty as is on the date President NIXON told Hanoi he would be ready to have it signed.

After that, if KISSINGER still wants to talk, NVN said it might be agreeable.

But KISSINGER has other ideas
MARVIN KALB: According to in-
formed sources, KISSINGER expects to
hold a critically important meeting
with the NVNese next week before the
US signs any peace treaty with them.

Both sides have been in secret
contact in recent days to set the
exact date.

It is understood the Russians
have been extremely helpful in pur-
suading Hanoi to consider KISSINGER's
demand for another meeting to re-
solve several outstanding issues
holding up a final deal.

Saigon's approval is going to be
hard to get, but KISSINGER is deter-
mined to get it.

The strong impression here is
that the Administration will not al-
low President THIEU to impose a veto
on the negotiations.

THIEU has only a few weeks of
rifle ammunition left and only the
US can provide him with more and he
knows it.

KISSINGER, a kind of middle man,
expects to reach final agreement
with North and South VN at roughly
the same time.

He anticipates problems and failure is always possible. But he seems genuinely to believe that the war will soon be over.

Thieu Says No Peace Until He Signs
Treaty

CRONKITE: SVNese President THIEU

said today that no matter what
Washington and Hanoi do, there
can't be peace in SVN until he
signs a treaty.

Nevertheless, Burt QUINT in
Saigon reports signs that THIEU
won't stand in the way.

BURT QUINT: The government
turned out several hundred persons
in a demonstration in downtown
Saigon.

Members of provincial and city
councils who have been meeting here
joined with some lower house mem-
bers in a march.

Carrying placards with old sło-
gans like no coalition and make
the NVNese troops leave the south.

Lending weight to the reports
of THIEU's willingness to go along
with the Hanoi-Washington agreement,
was the fact that there no banners
denouncing the cease fire or de-
nouncing the US.

The President welcomed them at
Independence Palace.

The fact is, whether THIEU re-
cognizes it publicly or not, that
an agreement is being imposed upon
him.

Sources close to THIEU say that
if the US will give him a firm com-
mitment to continue supplying mili-
tary and economic aid, he will not
block the cease fire.

Fighting May Stop In VN With A Bang

CRONKITE: If it seems likely
that fighting is about to stop in
VN, it looks like it is going out
with a bang.

Communist forces staged one
hundred and twenty-four attacks
throughout SVN, the most in more
than four years.

Some of the heaviest fighting
was within a few miles of Saigon.

In the central highlands, an
American was killed in a rocket
attack on the Kontum air field.

Another American died when his
helicopter was shot down along the
central coast.

Over NVN an F-4 phantom jet was
shot down. Both crewmen rescued.

The fighter bomber was flying a
mission well south of the twentieth
parallel above which American air
strikes have now been halted.

2

Monday, October 30, 1972

PART II

NBC NIGHTLY NEWS NBC-TV 7:00 PM

OCT 27

Some Differences In VN Settlement

JOHN CHANCELLOR: The NVNese were smiling today in Paris, saying the VN peace plan is all wrapped up.

In SVN, however, President THIEU is saying grimly it won't be worth anything if he doesn't sign it.

There were still some differences today between the NVNese and the Americans on the final form of a VN settlement.

Hanoi says it is all wrapped up and that it must be signed in Paris next Tuesday.

Washington, however, says there are still details to be worked out and that there is no signing deadline.

The NVNese told a news conference today that Henry KISSINGER, the President's negotiator, can come and talk about it before Tuesday, on Tuesday, or after Tuesday, as long as it is signed on Tuesday.

BERNARD KAPLAN: The NVNese news conference was their first public reply to Dr. KISSINGER's request for another round of negotiations.

Their spokesman, LAI (?) said there is nothing further to negotiate.

According to him, everything has been settled.

Now, he said, nothing is left to do but sign the peace agreement next Tuesday.

LAI: We are ready to meet with the other side to sign the agreement. (Words unintelligible)

We (?) the agreement once it is concluded.

KAPLAN: Tuesday is the date which the NVNese spokesman said President NIXON personally had proposed. This contradicts KISSINGER's claim that no firm date has been set.

LAI said NVN's foreign minister is getting ready to fly here for the signing.

He pointed to what he said was a copy of the still secret official text of the agreement. This is proof he said, that contrary to Dr. KISSINGER's claim, each and every detail of the accord has been settled.

But the NVNese spokesman said,

KISSINGER can have another meeting so long that it is understood that the agreement will still be signed next Tuesday.

The implication was that there can be no question of reopening issues already agreed to in order to overcome the opposition of SVN's President THIEU.

The way seemed to be opened to another meeting with Dr. KISSINGER very soon.

The NVNese were careful to avoid saying they refused seeing him. But according to them, there will be nothing to do at such a meeting except to toast the peace agreement in a glass of champagne.

## Peace Is At Tip Of Pen

CHANCELLOR: It looks as though that glass of champagne will be drunk, if not next Tuesday, sometime soon.

The NVNese were saying today peace is at the tip of a pen. The Soviet Union said today it hopes the peace talks will continue and lead to the speediest termination of hostilities and Reuter News Agency reports from Peking that the Chinese will support the settlement.

This has led to a general feeling that things are on the track - a feeling that Richard VALERIANI found today in Washington.

RICHARD VALERIANI: The White House had no official comment on the NVNese statement in Paris. But officials said privately that other signals from Hanoi indicate the peace agreement will not be jeopardized if it is not signed by next Tuesday.

At the same time, these officials suggested that the remaining differences with Hanoi may be somewhat more substantial than KISSINGER indicated yesterday.

There was no word here on when KISSINGER might meet again with the other side.

Intelligence sources believe the NVNese are eager for a settlement because they are hurting militarily and they want an agreement nailed down before their weakness really begins to show.

These sources said the amount of supplies getting into NVN has been cut in half by the American mining and bombing. Most of those supplies

3

Monday, October 30, 1972

PART II

the sources said, are food and petroleum with very little military material getting through.

The sources also suggested that Hanoi wants to settle quickly because it doesn't really trust the NIXON Administration to go through with the peace agreement once the presidential election is over.

Administration officials also claim that President THIEU's objections to the agreement are being voiced in public mostly for domestic political reasons. And that once a final agreement is reached with Hanoi, Saigon will quickly follow suit.

## Thieu Says Things About Peace Plan

CHANCELLOR: President THIEU had some things to say about his own position in all this.

President THIEU of SVN said today of the peace plan, we have not agreed to anything yet.

THIEU disagrees with six of the nine points in the Washington-Hanoi plan and especially with the point that calls for a three part council of national reconciliation and concord.

One SVNese said today. A rose by any other name - that is a coalition.

THIEU said that without his signature the agreement will be invalid in SVN. THIEU supporters were out today on the streets of Saigon.

TOM STREITHORST: Representatives of SVN's city council held a planned and carefully orchestrated demonstration this afternoon in support of President THIEU.

It was joined by members of the lower house of parliament and other officials who carried signs in VNese and English.

These are people who wear neckties and are unaccustomed to demonstrating. But they are also people who feel most threatened by the possibility, however remote, that the communists might sometimes succeed in taking over SVN.

The demonstrators marched to the presidential palace where they were met by SVN's President THIEU.

Saigon, like Hanoi, has always believed that military victory is the best way to end this war. That is what President THIEU still believes.

Still, under heavy pressure from the US, President THIEU has told his top commanders, his officials, and his people, to prepare for a cease fire.

But all SVNese public statements about cease fire have been qualified or conditional. On Friday, for example, the prime minister said this government is ready for a cease fire. But that it is adamant in refusing any political solution which goes against the interest or the will of SVN's seventeen and a half million people.

It is still conceivable therefore, that President THIEU might take the great risk of defying his principle support and ally, the US.

That doesn't appear likely. THIEU seems to be stalling but nobody really knows.

What is clear is that the THIEU government does not believe that cease fire can work in the long run. That ultimately, the struggle will continue, first by political means, and then after (word unintelligible) perhaps, by force of arms as well.

## Thieu Says UN Should Be Involved In
### Supervising In SVN

CHANCELLOR: THIEU also said today he would like the United Nations to supervise a referendum in SVN and the UN Secretary General said the organization is ready for that task.

It was also disclosed that Canada may be preparing to join an international peace keeping force supervising a cease fire.

## More Enemy Action Taking Place In
### Ground War

CHANCELLOR: In the ground war, the NVNese and VC increased their attacks all across SVN.

Hitting more than one hundred government positions. Two Americans were killed.

Some of this enemy action is obviously designed to get and hold more territory before a cease fire.

In this kind of fighting, some places are especially vulnerable. The little hamlets, where the government is boss in the day time and the VC in the night time.

BOB JONES: In all the talk of

4

Monday, October 30, 1972

PART II

cease fire, no one has yet publicly
suggested what is to be done with
these people.

The hundreds of thousands who
live under half government and half
communist control.

This hamlet, for example, nor-
mally is held by the government
during daylight hours.

The VC take over at night. This
time they stayed on beyond sunup.

Until the fighting is officially
over, there will be many incidents
like this.

There are VC and NVNese up there,
there are also civilians that they
are holding in the village.

The government forces do not want
to go in in strength shooting until
the civilians can get out.

The civilians in the middle.

President THIEU wants civilians
moved out of these contested re-
gions. That seems to mean that the
government wants to hold the people
and let the VC hold their territory.

It is not an ideal situation for
the villagers. The rich can easily
relocate and the influential can
even get out of the country.

The poor will be rounded up by
both sides and herded into control-
led zones.

That seems to be the shape of
things to come.

An acceptable system to divide
control of the roadways will also
have to be determined. As far back
as 1966 traffic was halted on this
stretch of highway one twenty miles
from Saigon at the town of Ku Chi
(?).

Now, six and a half years later,
it is stopped again.

The VC are restating their claim
to land as well as people. It is
as if the long years of war had
changed absolutely nothing.

Laird Leaves London - But For Where?

CHANCELLOR: Secretary of De-
fense LAIRD left London today for an
undisclosed destination.

Not Paris, not the US. His aides
would not say where LAIRD was
bound.

Arms Shipments To SVN Continuing

CHANCELLOR: The Defense Depart-
ment did not deny today that arms
shipments to SVN are continuing and

possibly being speeded up in anti-
cipation of the cease fire.

A spokesman said the other side
has not stopped, so we have not
either.

The Defense Department also said
today that a settlement of the war
will not produce a dramatic reduc-
tion in this year's defense budget.

Arms supplies must be replenish-
ed and the pull out of the remain-
ing Americans and South Korean
troops would be expensive. In-
creased costs of an all volunteer
army will use up the rest of the
budget.

All US POW's Would Be Freed With
Peace Plan

CHANCELLOR: If there is a VN
peace settlement along the lines
disclosed by both Henry KISSINGER
and the NVNese, all American pri-
soners of war will be freed sixty
days - within sixty days of a cease
fire.

The Pentagon is making arrange-
ments to take care of the prisoners
when they return.

ROY NEAL: More than five hun-
dred Americans are prisoners of the
NVNese. When they are released,
they will be taken to processing
centers in the Far East.

Medical files and personal his-
tories on each man are there now.
They will be given a preliminary
examination.

Those that are physically able
will be returned as soon as possible
to military hospitals near their
homes.

When the prisoners of war come
home, they will be flown back to
the US by the military airlift com-
mand and many of them will return
by way of this base, Travis Air
Force Base near San Francisco.

Travis is the main base for
Pacific travel. So the men will
come here first on their way home.

Some may be hospitalized over-
seas and some may have to be brought
back in military flying hospitals.

C-9's like this one.

From Travis, a lot of the return-
ees will go to the San Diego Naval
Hospital. An entire floor there
has been set aside for their treat-
ment and living quarters.

They will be given a comprehen-
sive examination. The mental read-

5

Monday, October 30, 1972

PART II

justment faced by the POW's may be
far more difficult then curing their
physical ailments.

Teams of doctors and psychiatrists recently have visited the men's families to explain possible problems.

Some of the men have been in pri-
son for up to seven years. Their
life has been one of regimentation
with little or no personal expres-
sion.

Now, they will have to make their
own decisions once again in a soc-
iety that is far different from the
one they left.

They don't know about mini-skirts
moon flights, hot pants and long
haired kids.

And it may take a long time and
a lot of work to adjust to them.

Air Force May Call Off Search For
Boggs

CHANCELLOR: The Air Force in-
dicated today that it may soon call
off its search in Alaska for House
Majority Leader Hale BOGGS.

The plane carrying BOGGS disap-
peared on a flight from Anchorage
to Juneau twelve days ago.

ABC EVENING NEWS ABC-TV 7:00 PM
OCT 27

NVN Wants Peace By Next Week

HARRY REASONER: Representatives of NVN demanded today that a peace agreement supposedly worked out with the US be signed next week.

But they stopped short of saying
that failure to sign would mean an
end to further negotiations.

The focus of their attack was on
President NIXON's chief foreign
policy advisor.

JOHN ROLFSON: The NVNese have
answered Henry KISSINGER and dis-
puted him in great detail.

The occasion was a tea party
here at NVNese headquarters in which
spokesman LAI was our host.

There was tea and imperial roe,
but the real purpose turned out to
be a point-by-point rejection of
what Henry KISSINGER said.

They insisted time after time
that the complete settlement has

been agreed upon and nothing re-
mains but to sign it without change
next Tuesday, October 31.

LAI showed us a thick document
saying that is the agreement. And
it was much longer than the summary
they published yesterday.

Taking each point KISSINGER said
needed more negotiation, LAI said
this document fully covers it.

On KISSINGER's remark that there
was a misunderstanding about the
signing date, LAI said there was no
misunderstanding and it was not, as
KISSINGER said, the VNese who pro-
posed the date, it was President
NIXON himself.

LAI said they have it in writing,
black on white.

We asked LAI repeatedly whether
under any circumstances the NVNese
would accept more negotiations be-
fore signing.

He said, no, without flatly
saying it, in answers dripping with
irony.

He said they would be happy to
receive KISSINGER the day of the
signing.

Or to discuss with KISSINGER the
day after the signing, or even the
day before the signing to sip
champagne with KISSINGER.

While awaiting the signing, but
everything is negotiated.

LAI quoted KISSINGER that peace
is at hand and LAI said, peace is
at the point of a pen. Let the
Americans pick up the pen.

Another Private Meeting Expected On
Peace Plan

TOM JERRIEL: The negotiating
conditions being stipulated by the
NVNese in Paris are viewed with cool
detachment by high Administration
officials.

There is no attitude of alarm or
panic or haste to rush off to ano-
ther meeting with the NVNese ar-
ranged through pressure generated
by such demands.

It is pointed out by officials
that another private meeting be-
tween Dr. HENRY KISSINGER and Hanoi's
THO, is expected.

The possibility of their meeting
next Tuesday is not ruled out.
However, today's Paris tea party
invitation for KISSINGER to meet on
the thirty-first, is not regarded as
a serious call to negotiate.

6

Monday, October 30, 1972

PART II

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <p>Sources say there has not yet been any contact made by the NVNese through established private channels to arrange another meeting.</p>
        <p>Until that comes, the President will keep KISSINGER here attending to less sensational affairs such as today's meeting with Laotian premier Souvanna PHOUMA.</p>
        <p>Under terms of the proposed cease fire, Laos would be neutral. And the prince of the little war torn country hopes the big powers will guarantee that neutrality.</p>
        <p>One day soon KISSINGER will drop out of public view again and return to the private talks.</p>
        <p>But even then officials say, it doesn't mean an immediate signing of peace terms as publicly demanded by the NVNese.</p>
        <p>Saigon's President THIEU will probably first be consulted once again.</p>
      </td>
      <td>
        <p>poured inside.</p>
        <p>Even more astonishing was the figure of President THIEU standing on the palace steps waiting - a flurry of well wishing handshakes followed, then THIEU led the crowd inside.</p>
        <p>First speeches by delegation spokesmen. Urging THIEU to stand firmly and not to accept the coalition as proposed.</p>
        <p>They only paradied what THIEU has been saying all along. That there will be no peace in VN until he affixes his signature to a peace agreement of any kind and not without the expressed approval of the people of SVN.</p>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <p><strong>Thieu Support Is Shown In Saigon</strong></p>
        <p><strong>HOWARD SMITH:</strong> In Saigon today, SVN's President THIEU said that any peace agreement is of no value unless he signs it and he added, we have not agreed to anything yet.</p>
        <p>Speaking to a group of his supporters THIEU also came out with a counter proposal of his own - an internationally supervised referendum to decide the make up of a new Saigon government.</p>
        <p>Earlier, the THIEU supporters staged a demonstration in Saigon.</p>
        <p><strong>FRANK MARIANO:</strong> The crowd of about a thousand marched from the center of Saigon to Independence Palace quietly and in orderly fashion.</p>
        <p>Some carried placards in both English and VNese so that the theme of the demonstration would be clearly understood.</p>
        <p>That of strong support for President THIEU and his stand against certain points of the peace agreement between Washington and Hanoi.</p>
        <p>First the Saigon city council and various members of the national government were at the head of the line of marchers. The police barricade, a block from the palace quickly came down and in an unprecedented move during demonstrations, the gates of the palace itself swung open.</p>
        <p>The crowd, including news men,</p>
      </td>
      <td>
        <p><strong>Feeling is Thieu Will Go Along With Agreement For Peace</strong></p>
        <p><strong>JIM GIGGINS:</strong> The feeling here in Saigon, among many foreign diplomats and VNese officials is that President THIEU will eventually sign a cease fire agreement.</p>
        <p>Not too different from the one offered by Hanoi and Washington.</p>
        <p>But the signing will come after much presidential flexing of muscles. Muscles toned by the relative stability and strength of THIEU's Saigon government.</p>
        <p>VNese politicians say with a wink that only a VNese could have really understood what was not said in THIEU's nation-wide talk the other day which appeared to have compromised the cause of peace.</p>
        <p>But I'm told the NVNese, being VNese, understood the subtleties, the ambiguities, the nuances quite clearly and they must have sensed THIEU was on the brink of acceptance.</p>
        <p>What they heard was a man negotiating from strength for the first time in his career. A man negotiating on equal (word unintelligible) with an adversary that so often had him on the defensive.</p>
        <p>THIEU has been called the US puppet, a war mongering dictatorial orger - he is none of these.</p>
        <p>He is a man, perhaps too powerful in his own country, and too convinced that only he can save SVN.</p>
        <p>But he is also a man who has some very real reservations about certain passages of the peace agreement as they are now written.</p>
        <p>By balking now, he hopes to get them changed. If not, I'm told he</p>
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

7

Monday, October 30, 1972

PART II

1

is prepared to sign, hoping for the
best and believing in the long run
Hanoi is giving up much more than
Saigon.

## Moscow Hopes For Rapid Peace For VN

SMITH: In Moscow, today, Soviet Premier KOSYGIN met with representatives of NVN and the VC and the Soviet news agency Tass said KOSYGIN expressed his hopes for the speediest possible end to the VN war.

## No Let Up In Ground War In VN

SMITH: There is no let up in the ground war in SVN meanwhile. One hundred and twenty-four separate communist military actions were reported on Thursday.

Most of them in the area around Saigon.

The US command said two Americans were killed, four wounded in the stepped up fighting.

## Commentary On Peace Movements

HOWARD SMITH: I want to dispute a contention that is being heard increasingly as peace approaches in VN.

It is, that this settlement could have been reached four years ago without all the bloodshed.

Well, the truth is, this agreement could not have been made four weeks ago.

The US terms for a settlement have been on the record for a long time. They are, cease fire, withdrawal of all US troops if our prisoners are returned, and let the SVNese decide their own future in elections to be arranged by both waring sides.

Hanoi's rejection of those terms has been on the public record for a long time.

Hanoi insisted on one central demand. That is, that we throw THIEU out and set up a coalition government.

Well, three weeks ago, Hanoi finally yielded for the first time.

The nine point agreement accepts all of our terms, and Hanoi agrees to let THIEU stay on with his million man army in control of most of the country though, of course, now he will have to fend for himself.

But only that recent concession by NVN permitted the settlement.

Hanoi held out so long in the hope that the peace movement in this country would force a US surrender on Hanoi's terms.

Only when it became clear that the peace movement has failed did Hanoi settle.

The peace movement may claim to have exercised some influence on things; it may have helped to force US troop withdrawals over the past three years; it may have saved Hanoi's dikes from being bombed.

But ironically, the peace movement in this country, also prevented peace. By nourishing Hanoi's illusions.

The end of those illusions this fall has brought a settlement.

Mrs. Judy AYRES was interviewed on the special NPACT program on October 26, 1972, dealing with Henry KISSINGER's press conference. Complete transcript is available.

8

Monday, October 30, 1972

New York Times
27 Oct. 1972

# Transcript of Kissinger's News Conference on the Status of the Cease-Fire Talks

Following is a transcript of a news briefing held by Henry A. Kissinger in Washington yesterday, as recorded by The New York Times through the facilities of A.B.C. News:

## OPENING STATEMENT

We have now heard from both Vietnams and it is obvious that the war that has been raging for 10 years is drawing to a conclusion, that this is a traumatic experience for all of the participants.

The President thought that it might be helpful if I came out here and spoke to you about what we have been doing, where we stand, and to put the various allegations and charges into perspective.

First, let me talk about the situation in three parts: Where do we stand procedurally; what is the substance of the negotiations and where do we go from here?

We believe peace is at hand. We believe that an agreement is within sight on the May 8 proposals of the President and some adaptations of our Jan. 25 proposals, which is just to all parties.

It is inevitable that in a war of such complexity that there should be occasional difficulties in reaching a final solution. But we believe that by far the longest part of the road has been traversed and what stands in the way of an agreement now are issues that are relatively less important than those that have already been settled.

Let me first go through the procedural points.

The argument with respect to particular dates for signing the agreement.

As you know, we have been negotiating in these private sessions with the North Vietnamese for nearly four years. We resumed the discussions on July 19 of this year. Up to now the negotiations had always foundered on the North Vietnamese insistence that a political settlement be arrived at before a military solution be discussed, and on the companion demand of the North Vietnamese that the political settlement make arrangements which, in our view, would have predetermined the political outcome.

## Separation of Issues Urged

We had taken the view, from the earliest private meetings on, that rapid progress could be made only if the political and military issues were separated. That is to say, if the North Vietnamese and we would negotiate about methods to end the war and if the political solution of the war were left to the Vietnamese parties to discuss among themselves.

During the summer, through many long private meetings, these positions remained essentially unchanged.

AS Radio Hanoi correctly stated today, on Oct. 4 the North Vietnamese for the first time made a proposal which enabled us to accelerate the negotiations.

Indeed, for the first time they made a proposal which made it possible to negotiate concretely at all.

This proposal has been correctly summarized in the statements from Hanoi. That is to say, it proposed that the United States and Hanoi, in the first instance, concentrate on bringing an end to the military aspects of the war—that they agree on some very general principles within which the South Vietnamese parties could then determine the political evolution of South Vietnam—which was exactly the position which we had always taken.

They dropped their demand for a coalition government which would absorb all existing authorities. They dropped their demand for a veto over the personalities and the structure of the existing government.

They agreed for the first time to a formula which permitted simultaneous discussion of Laos and Cambodia.

In short, we had for the first time a framework where, rather than exchange general propositions, and measuring our progress by whether dependent clauses of particular sentences had been minutely altered, we could examine concretely and precisely where we stood and what each side was prepared to give.

## 'Goodwill and Seriousness'

I want to take this opportunity to point out that from that time on the North Vietnamese negotiators behaved with goodwill and with great seriousness—and so did we.

And we have no complaint with the general description of events as it was given by Radio Hanoi.

However, there existed—there grew up—the seeds of one particular misunderstanding. The North Vietnamese negotiators made their proposal conditional on the solution of the problem by Oct. 31. And they constantly insisted that we give some commitment that we would settle the war and complete the negotiations by Oct. 31.

I want to stress that these dates were not dates that we invented or proposed. I would like to stress that my instructions from the President were exactly those that were stated by him at a press conference—that is to say, that we should make a settlement that was right, independent of any arbitrary deadlines that were established by our domestic processes.

In order to avoid an abstract debate on deadlines which at that time still seemed highly theoretical, we did agree that we would make a major effort to conclude the negotiations by Oct. 31. And it is true that we did from time to

time give schedules by which this might be accomplished.

It was, however, always clear, at least to us, and we thought we made it clear in the records of the meetings, that obviously we could not sign an agreement in which details remain to be worked out simply because in good faith we had said we would make an effort to conclude it by a certain date.

It was always clear that we would have to discuss anything that was negotiated first in Washington and then in Saigon.

## Right to Voice Accord

There has been a great deal of discussion whether Saigon has a veto over our negotiations, and I would like to explain our position with respect to that clearly.

The people of South Vietnam who have suffered so much and the Government of South Vietnam with which we have been allied and who will be remaining in that country after we have departed have every right to participate in the making of their own peace. They have every right to have their views heard and taken extremely seriously.

We, of course, preserve our own freedom of judgment and we will make our own decisions as to how long we believe a war should be continued.

But one source of misunderstanding has been that Hanoi seemed to be of the view that we could simply impose any solution on Saigon and that participation was not required.

But I also want to make clear that the issues that remain to be settled have a number of sources and I will get into them in some detail.

Saigon, as is obvious from the public record, has expressed its views with its customary forcefulness, both publicly and privately. We agreed with some of their views; we didn't agree with all of them and we made clear which we accepted and which we could not join.

In addition, while my colleagues and I were in Saigon we visited other countries of Southeast Asia and we had extensive conversations with American officials, and it appeared there that there were certain concerns and certain ambiguities in the draft agreement that we believed required modification and improvement.

## One Brief Session Foreseen

But I want to stress that what remains to be done is the smallest part of what has already been accomplished and as charges and countercharges fill the air we must remember that having come this far we cannot fail, and we

17

will not fall over what still remains to be accomplished.

Now let me first go briefly over the main provisions of the agreement as we understand them and then let me say what in our view still remains to be done.

We believe incidentally what remains to be done can be settled in one more negotiating session with the North Vietnamese negotiators, lasting, I would think, no more than three or four days, so we are not talking of a delay of a very long period of time.

Let me, however, before I go into the issues that still remain, cover those that we have—that are contained in the draft agreement, of which on the whole a very fair account has been given in the radio broadcast from Hanoi. I don't refer to the last two pages of rhetoric. I'm referring to the description of the agreement.

The principal provisions were and are that a cease-fire would be observed in South Vietnam at a time to be mutually agreed upon.

It would be a cease-fire in place.

But U.S. forces would be withdrawn within 60 days of the signing of the agreement.

There would be a total prohibition on the reinforcement of troops—that is to say that infiltration into South Vietnam from whatever area and from whatever country would be prohibited.

Existing military equipment within South Vietnam could be replaced on a one-to-one basis by weapons of the same characteristic and of similar characteristics and properties under international supervision.

The agreement provides that all captured military personnel and foreign citizens be repatriated within the same time period as the withdrawal—that is to say; there will be a return of all American prisoners—military or civilian—within 60 days after the agreement comes into force.

North Vietnam has made itself responsible for accounting of its prisoners and missing-in-actions throughout Indochina and for the repatriation of American prisoners throughout Indonesia.

There is a separate provision that South Vietnamese civilians detained in South Vietnam—their future should be determined, through negotiations among the South Vietnamese parties.

So the return of our prisoners is not conditional on the disposition of Vietnamese prisoners in Vietnamese jails on both sides of the conflict.

With respect to the political provisions, there is an affirmation of general principles guaranteeing the right of self-determination of the South Vietnamese people and that the South Vietnamese people should decide their political future through free and democratic elections under international supervision.

As was pointed out by Radio Hanoi, the existing authorities with respect to both internal and external politics would remain in office. The two parties in Vietnam would negotiate about the timing of elections, the nature of the elections and the offices for which these elections were to be held.

There would be created an institution called the National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord whose general task would be to help promote the maintenance of the cease-fire and to supervise the elections on which the parties might agree.

That council would be formed by appointment and it would operate on the basis of unanimity. We view it as an institutionalization of the election commission that we proposed on Jan. 25 in our plan.

## Joint Commission Provided

There are provisions that the disposition of Vietnamese armed forces in the South should also be settled through negotiations among the South Vietnamese parties.

There are provisions that the unification of Vietnam also be achieved by negotiating among the parties without military pressure and without foreign interference, without coercion and without annexation. There is a very long and complex section on international supervision which will no doubt occupy graduate students for many years to come and which as far as I can tell only my colleague, Ambassador Sullivan, understands completely.

But, briefly, it provides for joint commission of the participants — either two-party or four-party — for those parts of the agreement that are applicable either to two parties or to four parties. It provides for an international supervisory commission to which disagreements of the commission composed of the parties would be referred, but which also had a right to make independent investigations.

And an international conference to meet within 30 days of the signing of the agreement to develop the guarantees and to establish the relationship of the various parties to each other in greater detail.

And, finally, a section on Cambodia and Laos in which the parties to the agreement agree to respect and recognize the independence and sovereignty of Cambodia and Laos; in which they agree to refrain from using the territory of Cambodia and the territory of Laos to encroach on the sovereignty and security of other countries.

There is an agreement that foreign countries shall withdraw their forces from Laos and Cambodia.

And there is a general section about a future relationship between the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in which both sides express their conviction that this agreement will usher in a new period of reconciliation between the two countries and in which the United States expresses its view that it will in the post-war period contribute to the reconstruction of Indochina and that both countries will develop their relationship on a basis of mutual respect and noninterference in each other's affairs, and that they move from hostility to normalcy.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, in the light of where we are, it is obvious that most of the most difficult problems have been dealt with. And if you'll consider what many of us—or what many of you might have thought possible some months ago compared to where we are, we have to say that both sides have approached this problem with a long-term point of view, with the attitude that we want to have not an armistice but peace.

And it is this attitude which will govern our actions despite occasional ups and downs which are inevitable in a problem of this complexity.

## What Are the Obstacles?

Now what is it then that prevents the completion of the agreement? Why is it that we have asked for one more meeting with the North Vietnamese to work out a final text? The principal reason is that in a negotiation that was stalemated for five years and which did not really make a breakthrough until Oct. 8, many of the general principles were clearly understood before the breakthrough.

But as one elaborated the text, many of the nuances on which the imple-

mentation will ultimately depend be- comes more and more important.

It was obvious, it was natural, that when we were talking about the abstract desirability of a cease-fire that neither side was perhaps as precise as it had to become later about the timing and spacing of the cease-fire in a country in which there are no clear front lines. And also the acceptance on our part of the North Vietnamese insistence on an accelerated schedule meant that texts could never be conformed; that English and Vietnamese texts tended to lag behind each other and let ambiguities and formulations arise that require one more meeting to straighten out.

Let me give you a few examples and I think you will understand that we are talking here of a different problem than what occupied us in the many sessions I have had with you ladies and gentlemen about the problem of peace in Vietnam—sessions which concerned abstract theories of what approach might succeed. We are talking here about six or seven very concrete issues that with anything like the goodwill that has already been shown can easily be settled.

For example, it has become apparent to us that there will be a great temptation for the cease-fire to be paralleled by a last effort to seize as much territory as possible and perhaps to extend operations for long enough to establish political control over a given area.

We would like to avoid the dangers of the loss of life and perhaps in some areas even of the massacre that maybe inherent in this, and we therefore want to discuss methods by which the international supervisory body can be put in place at the same time that the cease-fire is promulgated. And the Secretary of State has already had preliminary conversations with some of the countries that are to join this body in order to speed up this process.

## Complex Relationships Noted

Secondly, because of the different political circumstances in each of the Indochina countries the relationship of military operations there to the end of the war in Vietnam, or cease-fire there in relation to the end of the war in Vietnam, is somewhat complex, and we would like to discuss more concretely how to compress the time as much as possible.

There were certain ambiguities that were raised by the interview that the North Vietnamese Prime Minister, Pham Van Dong, gave to one of the weekly journals in which he seemed to be, with respect to one or two points, under a missapprehension as to what the agreement contained, and at any rate we would like to have that clarified.

There are linguistic problems in which for example, we call the National Council of Reconciliation an administrative structure in order to make clear that we do not see it as anything comparable to a coalition government. We want to make sure that the Vietnamese text conveys the same meaning. I must add that the word "administrative structure" was given to us in English by the Vietnamese, so this is not a maneuver on our part.

There are some technical problems as to what clauses of the Geneva accord to refer to in certain sections of the document and there is a problem which was never settled in which the North Vietnamese, as they have pointed out in their broadcast, have proposed that the agreement be signed by the United States and North Vietnam—we on behalf of Saigon; they on behalf of their allies in South Vietnam.

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We have always held the view that we would leave it up to our allies whether they wanted a two-power document or whether they wanted to sign themselves a document that establishes peace in their country. Now they prefer to participate in the signing of the peace.

And it seems to us not an unreasonable proposal that a country on whose territory a war has been fought and whose population has been uprooted and has suffered so greatly that it should have the right to sign its own peace treaty.

This again strikes us as a not-insuperable difficulty, but its acceptance will require the redrafting of certain sections of the document, and that again is a job that will require several hours of work.

### Any Date of Their Choice

We have asked the North Vietnamese to meet with us on any date of their choice. We have, as have been reported, restricted our bombing" in effect to the battle area in order to show our goodwill and to indicate that we are working within the framework of existing agreements.

We remain convinced that the issues that I have mentioned are soluble in a very brief period of time. We have undertaken, and I repeat it here pub-

licly, to settle them at one more meeting and to remain at that meeting for as long as is necessary to complete the agreement.

So this is the situation in which we find ourselves with respect to Hanoi. We understand its disappointment that a schedule towards the realization of which it had made serious efforts could not be met for reasons beyond the control of any party.

But they know or they should know, and they certainly must know now, that peace is within reach in a matter of weeks or less, dependent on when the meeting takes place, and that once peace is achieved we will move from hostility to normalcy and from normalcy to co-operation with the same seriousness with which we have conducted our previous less fortunate relationships with them.

As far as Saigon is concerned, it is of course entitled to participate in the settlement of a war fought on its territory. Its people have suffered much and they will remain there after we leave. Their views deserve great respect.

In order to accelerate negotiations we had presented them with conclusions which obviously could not be fully settled in a matter of four days that I spent in Saigon. But we are confident that our consultations with Saigon will

produce agreement within the same time frame that I have indicated is required to complete the agreement with Hanoi and that there will be no — and that the negotiations can complete — can continue on the schedule that I have outlined with respect to the American people.

We have talked to you, ladies and gentlemen, here very often about the negotiations with respect to the peace. And we have been very conscious of the division and the anguish that the war has caused in this country. That's one reason why the President has been so concerned with ending the war by negotiations and ending it in a manner that is consistent with our principles, because of the hope that the act of making peace could restore the unity that had sometimes been lost at certain periods during the war.

And so that the agreement could be an act of healing rather than a source of new division. This remains our policy. We will not be stampeded into an agreement until its provisions are right. We will not be deflected from an agreement when its provisions are right. And with this attitude and with some co-operation from the other side we believe that we can restore both peace and unity to America very soon.

I'll be glad to answer your questions:

## QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

**Q. Do you feel that this program could not have been achieved four years ago?**

A. There was no possibility of achieving this agreement four years ago because the other side consistently refused to discuss the separation of the political and military issues, because it always insisted that it had to settle the political issues with us and that we had to preponderate the future of South Vietnam in a negotiation with North Vietnam. As the statement from Hanoi said on Oct. 8, Hanoi for the first time made a what it called "a very significant proposal" in which it accepted the principles that the military issues should be settled first and that the political issues should be left essentially to negotiation among the South Vietnamese parties with just the most general principles to be settled in the private negotiations.

Could I have the text, I'll find it.

Well, as they say "with a view to making the negotiations progress" this is reading from the Hanoi statement—"at the private meeting on Oct. 8 the DRVN side took a new, extremely important initiative. It put forward a draft agreement and proposed that "the government" and so on "immediately agree upon and sign this agreement to rapidly restore peace in Vietnam. In that draft agreement the DRVN side proposed the cessation of the war throughout Vietnam, a cease-fire in South Vietnam and a total withdrawal of U.S. forces." And then it said, "The two South Vietnamese parties shall settle together the internal matters of South Vietnam within three months after the cease-fire comes into effect."

This is not an exact description of what the agreement says. The agreement does not say it must be done within three months. The agreement say that the two parties will do their utmost to get it done within three months.

The exact text to which I referred is as follows:

"Therefore, as the U.S. side has many times proposed, the Vietnam problem should be solved in two steps. The first step is to end the war in Vietnam, to have a cease-fire in South Vietnam, to end U.S. military involvement in South Vietnam. In the second step the South Vietnamese side will jointly solve South Vietnamese internal problems."

This has been our position since the beginning of these negotiations. It was never accepted four years ago, three years ago or two months ago. The first time it was accepted was on Oct. 8. As soon as it was accepted we completed within four days a rough draft of an agreement from which we have since been operating.

### No Time Limit on Truce

**Q. What is their recourse if the negotiations for the elections break down? That has been a point which North Vietnam has often said in the past.**

A. The question is what is the recourse if the negotiations for the elections break down. The agreement provides that the cease-fire is without time limit.

**Q. Did President Thieu go along with this whole deal?**

A. As I have pointed out, the South Vietnamese agreed with many parts of it and disagree with some aspects of it. And we agreed with some of their disagreement and not with all.

**Q. Were the South Vietnamese informed of the negotiations?**

A. The South Vietnamese were informed of the negotiations as they went along. However, the negotiations were really composed of two phases:

There was the negotiations between July 19 and Oct. 8. In that negotiation, the other side constantly proposed various formulas for the institution of a coalition government which would replace the existing Government in Saigon and which would assume governmental powers.

And Saigon was informed. I took a trip to Saigon in the middle of August, to have a long discussion with the South Vietnamese Government. My deputy, General Haig, took another trip to present to them the various formulations that had been developed.

On Oct. 8, for the first time, Hanoi presented the different approach which they have correctly described in their statement. They then insisted that we, on the basis of this approach, begin to draft the outline of an agreement in order to meet their deadline for Oct. 31.

Now if we had wanted to protract negotiations, we could easily have said that we have to return to Washington first or return to Saigon for further consultation.

We believed that this was such an important step on the part of the North Vietnamese, that took into account so many of the proposals that we had made, and such a significant movement in the direction of the positions consistently held by the Administration, that we had an obligation—despite the risks that were involved — of working with them to complete at least an outline of an agreement.

And we spent four days — sometimes working 16 hours a day—in order to complete this draft agreement, or at least the outline of this draft agreement.

I mention this only because if we had wanted to delay, we had many much better opportunities than to raise a few objections of the kind that I have described at the very end. But we did insist — and we constantly emphasized this — that we could not conclude this agreement without a full discussion with our allies in Vietnam.

And I want to make clear another thing: That many of the concerns I have expressed here, while they are also shared by Saigon, are ours as well. And the particular issues that I raised would require resolution if the agreement is to bring a real peace, and

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... Western Europe, p. 2 Asia, p. 10 Communist Countries, p. 15

# PROBLEMS OF VIETNAM PEACE ACCORD

## Summary

Foreign media over the weekend and today assumed that a cease-fire in Vietnam was more or less imminent, while expressing concern over various aspects of the peace agreement announced last Thursday by Hanoi and confirmed by the U.S.

Reflecting the mood of anticipation, the *Times* of London reported from Washington that "the imminence of a Vietnam settlement eclipses all else in the final week of the Presidential election campaign."

Reservations about points of the agreement included the following:

- The London *Daily Telegraph*, a supporter of U.S. Vietnam policy, said the most important among "several grounds for misgiving" was "that the North Vietnamese regular forces now in South Vietnam would remain where they are at the time of the cease-fire, and there is no explicit provision for their withdrawal."

- Japan's NHK-TV observed that "guaranteeing a cease-fire once the peace agreement is signed is a difficult problem because of the possibility that military moves will occur while the two sides carry out political negotiations."

- The *Sydney Morning Herald* said the history of "control commissions" had been one of not "imposing any noticeable checks on the erosion of the agreements and of the peace they were supposed to secure."

President Nixon's Saturday radio speech was widely reported, including his reference to "peace with honor." Sparse comment was critical: The London *Sunday Telegraph* said "nobody--except Mr. Nixon--would choose to call this peace with honor, although it may well be the best peace available."

The Viet Cong's press service charged the U.S. with adopting "a cheating attitude."
Moscow radio over the weekend turned to direct criticism of the U.S. role.
Peking *People's Daily* sharply attacked President Thieu and the U.S. for not
"setting right his truculent attitude."

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London: Guaranteeing the Cease-fire

British media today and over the weekend examined the terms of agreement announced by Hanoi radio and essentially confirmed by Mr. Kissinger. Observers assumed a cease-fire was indeed "at hand," but predictions of its timing varied.

Some conservative papers considered the prospective settlement as reflecting little credit on the U.S. and as a prelude to an eventual Communist take-over of South Vietnam.

The independent *Times* of London this morning looked beyond an immediate cease-fire and commented, "Certainly the international powers involved as guarantors should be much less at odds politically than were those committed to the 1954 Geneva settlement. This may make for firmer control by the teams in the field supervising the cease-fire and a more active consultation by the governments interested in keeping the peace. It is hard to foretell what peaceful settlement the 'two sides' may contrive in South Vietnam. But at least in the international sense the end of this war, once achieved, promises to be final."

In a Washington dispatch the paper remarked: "The imminence of a Vietnam settlement eclipses all else in the final week of the Presidential election campaign. Conventional surmise can see only a relieved nation giving President Nixon a landslide victory. Of course, Mr. Nixon could still be embarrassed by delay in sealing the final bargain but, like President Thieu, Mr. McGovern seems to have been overtaken by events."

On Saturday the paper said that Mr. Kissinger's message was that "nothing could stand in the way of the gamble that President Nixon has decided that the South Vietnamese must now take on their own in peaceful competition." On the other side, the paper speculated, "There is little doubt that China and Russia have played prominent roles in persuading Hanoi that enough is enough."

"Nice Definitions of Honor"

An editorial in the independent conservative *Sunday Times* was headed, "The Honor Is Dishonor." It asserted:

"If peace is made in Vietnam, it will be a theatrical climax to the first term of the Nixon Presidency.... That would be

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a great triumph for the President's political wisdom.

"It would not be a triumph for his honor or his diplomatic cunning, or for the military might of the U.S. or the cause of anti-Communism in Asia. It would simply be a victory for flexibility...

"It is irrelevant that this settlement shows the U.S. in a dishonorable light. The time is past for nice definitions of honor when survival itself is the issue: survival as a coherent, democratic society, and the main prop of the West. Deep though the disgust may be at this futile adventure, one must hope that the scars of it do not endure too long, and that the second Nixon term (which now seems inevitable) is marked by a rebirth of American diplomacy rather than an isolationist retreat."

The liberal _Guardian_ of Manchester and London reported from Washington today that "the Administration is said to be finding it extremely difficult to persuade other countries such as Canada to take part in the cease-fire arrangements, particularly where this involves committing troops."

The independent London _Financial Times_ today expressed the hope that following a Vietnam settlement, "the U.S. should be able to give more attention to relationships with its traditional allies in Europe after a decade of growing distraction with Asia that itself became a source of friction with many of the NATO allies.... In every area, European and American interests tend to diverge, however, and the most obvious danger is that the U.S. will be tempted to overreach itself again by the very success of its diplomacy with the Communists."

On Saturday the paper remarked that "to use words like victory and defeat in the context of Vietnam is a hazardous enterprise, but it is possible to say that if the agreement announced in Washington on Thursday by Henry Kissinger is eventually implemented, it will be as close to an American negotiating success as the vague and fluid conditions of Vietnam allow."

## "Grounds for Misgiving"

On the same day, the conservative _Daily Telegraph_ took the view that Mr. Kissinger's statement "shows several grounds for misgiving." The most important, it said, was "that the North Vietnamese regular forces now in South

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Vietnam would remain where they are at the time of the cease-fire, and there is no explicit provision for their withdrawal. The present greatly increased number of attacks by these forces is clearly intended to occupy as much ground as possible before the cease-fire...

"So the question has to be asked: why should there not be provision for the withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces from South Vietnam in the same way that there is provision for the withdrawal of American forces? Similarly, while there would be a ban on military supplies for South Vietnam, except on a strict one-for-one basis, there is no provision for any restriction on arms imports by North Vietnam. Both these factors heavily weigh the scales against Saigon.

"Dr. Kissinger claimed that the great 'breakthrough' came because Hanoi had dropped its demand for a coalition and agreed to separate the military from the political settlement. Unless there are weighty agreements still being kept secret the terms may be dangerously near a sell-out."

"Not Peace With Honor"

The conservative Sunday Telegraph headlined an editorial: "Peace--No Honor." It declared that "the peace terms negotiated by Dr. Kissinger for Vietnam are such as to make a Communist take-over of that tragic country very probable." It reasoned:

"All that Hanoi has conceded in effect is not to go on insisting that a political take-over be written into the agreement. The North Vietnamese have not agreed to withdraw their troops, who will remain strategically poised to move on Saigon, hopefully after a decent interval sufficient to save a little of America's face.

"Nobody--except Mr. Nixon--would choose to call this peace with honor, although it may well be the best peace available."

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The paper asserted that the U. S. no longer sees a Vietnam victory as essential because detente with China and Russia "has produced a different set of priorities, with President Thieu reduced from a king-size piece to a mere pawn." It added:

> "Mr. Nixon may rejoice, since he will emerge victorious. But from the free world's point of view his is the only victory, and one which should properly be celebrated with a bowed head rather than a raised glass."

## "Powers of Council Far From Clear"

In the independent Sunday *Observer* William Millinship wrote, "While the President does appear to have wrung significant concessions from North Vietnam, it is far from clear, for instance, what will be the power and functions of the three-party National Council of Reconciliation and Concord that is to supervise elections in South Vietnam."

> "Assuming that an agreement is signed before the election and that American pressure obliges President Thieu to accept the deal, it will still be months before it is possible to judge how the agreement has worked in practice and whether America's sacrifices in the past four years were worthwhile."

The paper's Moscow correspondent reported that "the Russians are anxious to promote the Vietnam agreement as soon as possible," and that to reduce the risk of Mr. Nixon's giving "another turn of the screw to squeeze more concessions out of Hanoi" after the election, "Moscow would urge the Americans to sign the agreement before the election or, alternatively, would like a guarantee by Washington that there will be no sliding back from the agreed terms. The Soviet Government will try to persuade Hanoi to accept such a guarantee in the absence of immediate signature of the agreement."

## West German Emphases

Weekend West German papers ran reports speculating on the effect of North Vietnam's "ultimatum" on an October 31 signing of the agreement.

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They reported President Nixon's radio speech, noting his statement that the settlement terms provide "peace with honor." Papers ran profiles of Mr. Kissinger which judged that his "meteoric" career was about to reach its zenith with the settlement.

## "Agreement Can Serve Saigon"

Today's independent *Sueddeutsche Zeitung* of Munich asserted that the draft settlement was "an elegant frame which a Saigon resolved to survive can turn to profitable use." The editorial declared while a North Vietnamese "victory" would have meant expulsion of the U.S. from Indochina, the agreement will permit America to "remain in Indochina and gain influence as well in North Vietnam by wielding its most powerful weapon--money."

"But the U.S.'--or Kissinger's--most ingenious stroke was to arrange for Sino-American reconciliation before the end of the Vietnam war, thereby eliminating the 'humiliation' aspect from the U.S. withdrawal."

Bonn's independent *General-Anzeiger* asserted that Hanoi's strategy is "to demonstrate that anyone relying on the Americans is lost. Thieu is being used as proof of this. By arranging a cease-fire behind his back... they demonstrate that he is Washington's puppet, a scapegoat who can be disposed of...."

"To many Germans the question of war guilt has long ago been answered. They hold the U.S. and Thieu's South Vietnam responsible. This view is as one-sided as the pictures which only show the victims of U.S. bombing but not those killed by Soviet or Chinese ordnance, with which the Communist David has been lavishly supplied for his struggle against the American Goliath. One-sided judgment will subject South Vietnam to one-sided rule."

Independent-right weekly *Der Spiegel*, out today, wrote that the war in Vietnam "documented the failure of U.S. world power to save a small allied country from Communism and the reluctance of Soviet world power to spare a small allied country nearly total destruction."

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"For the politically conscious young postwar generation, this war has been what the Spanish Civil War was for their fathers --fuel for a militant human solidarity, which, however, left events virtually unchanged. This war has been one of the greatest tragedies in modern history...."

West Berlin: "U.S. Credibility Shaken"

Independent *Berliner Morgenpost* declared that President Nixon and Mr. Kissinger seem to be "becoming prisoners of their own global concepts..."

"Shall Kissinger not be allowed to abandon Indochina if it serves the interests of a mythical detente, a virtuoso tight-rope act between Washington, Moscow and Peking? History will one day pass its judgment on a lost peace, and it will not be for the first time."

"Then it may be recorded that the U.S. world power suffered a grave loss of prestige, and not only in Asia. Loyalty to alliances has become uncertain, face has been lost, the credibility of the U.S. in the third world has been shaken. Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, South Korea and the Philippines must be prepared for the day when the lights will go out there."

"The U.S. surrender in Vietnam promises us little American involvement in a clearly defined four-power responsibility for all of Germany."

Turin: "Neither Side Wins"

Influential, left-of-center *La Stampa* of Turin said yesterday:

"It seems clear that neither side has won. The nine-point agreement... shows a substantial compromise... The greatest power in the world failed to win this guerrilla war but the guerrillas and their foreign supporters did not succeed in humiliating America..."

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Conservative Il Resto del Carlino of Bologna remarked:

"Hanoi's insistence on the October 31 deadline... is merely the propaganda that follows every compromise and cease-fire not preceded by unconditional surrender... The White House's silence and moderation show that it is the U.S. that is coming out a winner from the negotiations."

Independent-conservative Corriere della Sera of Milan saw the agreement as "a double failure" since the U.S. and Saigon "failed to drive the Communists out of South Vietnam, and Hanoi and the Viet Cong were unable to overthrow the Saigon regime and pledged a cease-fire without getting a coalition government or the release of their political prisoners."

### Paris: "Better If Peace Can Wait"

The Washington correspondent of moderately conservative Figaro of Paris wrote today that "Mr. Nixon believes that a 'good peace' in two weeks is better than a 'bad peace' in 48 hours--and he is right." He concluded that the President was trying to "round out his diplomatic triumph... Everything will be easier and simpler if peace can wait until after November 7, and that is what is likely to happen.

"In publicly revealing that everything was negotiated and settled the North Vietnamese strategists made a serious error; but haven't they been proving for a long time that their great weakness is their unawareness of the fluctuations of U.S. public opinion? One may, of course, forgive them for they do not have this kind of problem at home."

In the same paper Academician Thierry Maulnier wondered whether the settlement would end in "true peace or in a return to a war of subversion--a civil war--which is not an impossibility if South Vietnam refuses to collapse.... Is this peace aimed at disguising capitulation with honor and abandoning the South Vietnamese ally to his fate?"

### "U.S. Has Been Had"

Independent-left Combat today asserted that "Mr. Kissinger realized a bit belatedly after his discussions with the Saigon leaders, that his handiwork

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had serious flaws--in other words, that he had been had. He therefore
requested another meeting with his North Vietnamese interlocutors. The
latter have been complaining, stressing that Mr. Nixon himself had
acknowledged that everything was settled...

"The White House is deeply embarrassed; signing the accord as it is now would appear to be pure and simple capitulation to North Vietnamese demands."

Vienna: "No Victory, No Glory"

Austrian media assessed President Nixon's re-election chances as so strong that he was not under Communist pressure to make concessions to Hanoi. They also showed understanding for President Thieu's "misgivings" about the agreement.

Hugo Portisch, Austria's best known commentator, now in the U.S., wrote in Friday's independent Kurier of Vienna that America's longest war was drawing to an end "without victory, without glory, without fanfare...less because of the military situation than the situation in world affairs....

"It is a moot question which of the two sides surrendered in the bargaining. It is beyond debate, however, that accord was reached mainly at the expense of the South Vietnamese, or at least of the Thieu Government. Furthermore, the Americans are withdrawing from South Vietnam, while the Communists will remain there--not only the local Communists but those from the north.... The struggle for political victory is just beginning. This is not yet the end of the political tragedy."

Zurich: "Hanoi's Anti-Thieu Theme"

A commentator in Switzerland's prestigious Neue Zuercher Zeitung wrote yesterday, "It is amazing to see what circles are spreading Hanoi's theme that the only obstacle to peace is a 'bad' Thieu. Actually, Thieu is trying to prevent the cease-fire terms from leading to the outmaneuvering of the South Vietnamese non-Communists. This is also what Kissinger and Nixon want to prevent...."

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Tokyo: "Hard to Guarantee Cease-Fire"

Japan's publicly financed NHK-TV this morning reported from Washington that Mr. Kissinger is expected to resume talks with Le Duc Tho this week in Paris. It said that although Hanoi was pressing for signing the peace agreement on October 31, this was not expected to take place for another week or two because the U.S. needed to persuade Saigon on some remaining issues.

An NHK commentator said that "guaranteeing a cease-fire once the peace agreement is signed is a difficult problem because of the possibility that military moves will occur while the two sides carry out political negotiations." He added, however:

"The U.S. -North Vietnam agreement has created an environment for peace which is not likely to reverse its course, even without the support at present of the South Vietnamese Government. Peace is just around the corner."

"End of an Era"

Top-circulation independent-liberal Asahi of Tokyo said on Saturday that Mr. Kissinger "has confirmed the sincerity and good intentions of the North Vietnamese side" and expressed hope that "the U.S. and North Vietnam will continue negotiations and sign the nine-point agreement so that there will be real peace in all of Indochina." It declared:

"For a time there were some who believed that 'might is right' as the U.S. waged an unprecedented physical war of death and destruction in Vietnam. However, it has become clear that the display of power was nothing less than an indication of weakness, because this power lost its magical strength in the face of the great cause of national self-determination and national survival. In this sense, we hope the Vietnam war will proclaim the end of an era."

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"Favorable Climate Could Change"

Independent-moderate Mainichi remarked on Saturday that the "secret dialogue for peace" had been held "in a favorable international atmosphere of East-West rapprochement in Asia and Europe." It added:

> "If the parties concerned pass up this chance, the international climate surrounding them and their neighbors and allies, including the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, may not long remain so favorable."

Seoul: "No Wonder Thieu Refuses"

Independent-conservative Chosun Ilbo of Seoul yesterday expressed sympathy with Mr. Thieu's attitude. It said:

> "It is no wonder that President Thieu is refusing to accept a peace agreement which offers no specific assurance against communizing his country."

Today's middle-of-the-road Joongang Ilbo similarly supported Mr. Thieu. The Washington correspondent of conservative Kyunghyang Shinmin of Seoul asserted that the substance of the draft agreement as disclosed by Hanoi "virtually amounts to U.S. abandonment of its commitment to the Saigon Government."

Sydney: "Commissions Do Not Keep the Peace"

The conservative, prestigious Sydney Morning Herald said on Saturday that important elements in the agreement were unclear. It asked, "Who are the neutralists and what is the precise role of the National Council for Reconciliation and Concord?" It added that the history of control commissions had been one of not "imposing any noticeable checks on the erosion of the agreements and of the peace they were supposed to secure." It concluded, however:

> "The agreement, in the general terms in which we know it, is probably as good as could be secured at this stage."

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"Peace With Honor?"

The independent influential *Australian* of Canberra, in an editorial titled "The Irony of Peace with Honor," said today that it remains to be seen who will win the honors in Vietnam. It contended that North Vietnam had already won, if only by outlasting the U.S.

The conservative *Age* of Melbourne said the U.S. was "getting off the hook with as much honor as it can salvage." It feared that the framework of the agreement is "fragile and there can be no grounds for optimism that it will stand up to the deep-rooted antagonisms and ambitions of both sides." It expressed hope that the "long war of weapons may be scaled down to a longer war of words" but said it would be "realistic to expect the Asians to settle things in their own way and leave the means to heaven."

"Will Be a Watershed"

The *Australian Financial Review* of Sydney today suggested that "despite all the qualifications, a successful agreement on a cease-fire in Vietnam will in itself be a major watershed in international affairs" because it will mark one of the final efforts of the U.S. to liquidate the foreign policy heritage of the 60's.

The independent, pro-U.S. *Canberra Times* declared on Saturday that the U.S. seemed to have bargained away points that have always been regarded as non-negotiable, and that recognition of a Viet Cong administration in South Vietnam is a matter for South Vietnam to decide, not Americans. It said:

"The outcome of this concession by the Americans will almost certainly be that the Communists will gain in the end what they have always wanted."

Wellington: "Could Be Sellout of Our Effort"

New Zealand's nationally circulated *Dominion* of Wellington asserted on Saturday that point four of the agreement as described by North Vietnam is "Hanoi-oriented right through" and "could be a sellout for the New Zealand effort to assist in the defense of South Vietnam."

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The top-circulation *New Zealand Herald* of Auckland declared today:

> "If the war in Vietnam is indeed coming to a close, it is ending as obscurely and as confusingly as it has been fought.... Very little will have been decided from the long conflict other than the winning of time for other countries of the region to develop preparedness, self-reliance and ability to resist aggression. Certainly none had such capacity when the conflict started."

Saturday's Christchurch *Press* concluded that "the terms do not look good; but after the years of disastrous bloodshed, intransigence and dashed hopes, could anyone reasonably expect them to look better?"

### Calcutta: "U.S. Public Not Particular About Terms"

The moderate, independent *Hindustan Standard* of Calcutta wrote on Saturday that "the doves of peace are evidently flying over Vietnam, although they may not descend on that war-battered land on October 31.

> "American public opinion is patently in favor of an immediate peace and is not very particular about the terms on which it is brought about, its sole concern being the release of the U.S. prisoners of war in the hands of the North Vietnamese...."

### "U.S. Losing Credibility"

The conservative *Hindu* of Madras commented on Saturday:

> "Americans may feel that as a result of the Vietnamization process, which has greatly strengthened Saigon, and the presence of foreign supervisory committees that there is no risk of a Communist take-over. But it is clear to the world that it is Washington that has finally decided to opt out of the war, even at the cost of losing its credibility as a dependable ally in Asia. In Taiwan, at any rate, it will be no surprise that the U.S. commitment to Saigon is being wound up."

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## Kathmandu: "A Victory for Sanity"

The semi-official English-language *Rising Nepal* of Kathmandu wrote on Saturday that the agreement "is a victory of sanity over the primitively savage path of human and environmental destruction." While some might feel that the U.S. "by entering this agreement has betrayed an ally," the paper said it should be remembered that the U.S. is a democracy that "reflects the wishes of its people" and that public opinion "virtually compelled one of the Presidents not to seek re-election..."

## A Zambian View

The Government-owned *Zambia Mail* said on Friday:

> "It is fairly obvious how delicate the situation is and that it could break down even at the eleventh hour--before the formal signing on October 31. We hope that does not happen. There has been enough misery in Indochina.

> "A settlement in Vietnam could be the start of total peace in that area as well as other parts of the world. When that happens it may be no longer necessary to hear 'Go Home Yankees!' slogans in the capitals of the world."

## Santiago: Credit to Mr. Nixon, But "Doubts Remain"

Independent, conservative *El Mercurio* of Santiago noted on Saturday that "the cease-fire formula contains some satisfactory items but also some which leave doubts," such as "total silence regarding regular North Vietnamese troops presently in South Vietnam.

> "Credit for the end of hostilities goes largely to President Nixon... But a dark shadow remains: the fact that the cease-fire is being obtained precisely one week before the U.S. elections."

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VC, Hanoi Themes

A Liberation Press Agency (Viet Cong) commentary on Saturday epitomized the charges that North Vietnamese and Provisional Revolutionary Government media have repeatedly aired since Hanoi's disclosure of peace agreement terms last week:

"Disregarding its pledges, the U.S. Government has adopted a cheating attitude, has brazenly demanded the revision of what was agreed upon and has delayed signing the agreement."

An editorial in yesterday's daily *Nhan Dan* declared that the struggle would go on: "As long as the U.S. aggressive forces continue their war of aggression and refuse to sign the text of the agreement that was reached, our people will resolutely persevere in and step up their anti-U.S. national salvation struggle."

Exhortations and appeals in the same vein by the National Liberation Front and the Vietnam Fatherland Front have been given wide publicity.

Moscow: Weekend Output Blames U.S.

Although Soviet media refrained from originating comment in first treatment of the disclosures on Thursday by Hanoi and Mr. Kissinger, broadcasts to both domestic and foreign audiences over the weekend placed blame squarely on the U.S.:

--"The puppet administration [in Saigon] is a U.S. instrument to block any peaceful settlement of the Vietnam problem. Therefore, the situation created by the U.S. itself shows that Washington is not adopting a serious stance at the talks and is resorting to procrastination tactics in order to deceive public opinion and continue the war."

(Moscow radio in Portuguese to Brazil, Friday)

--"The U.S. attempts to prolong military actions in Vietnam cannot be justified by any arguments. References to the so-called intractability or noncompliance on the part of Thieu... in order to drag out the solution of such an important and pressing matter as the restoration of peace in Vietnam cannot be regarded as substantial."

(Moscow radio domestic service, Saturday)

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--"It has become obvious that the U. S. ruling circles are trying to escape their obligations and to prolong the fighting."

(Moscow radio in English to Asia, today)

Peking Accuses Thieu and U. S.

Peking People's Daily on Friday carried the full text of the North Vietnamese Government statement of October 26, but there was no media comment until today, when the paper sharply condemned President Thieu for "undermining" agreement between Hanoi and Washington. It also charged that the U.S. "bears a great responsibility which it cannot shirk for the attempt of Nguyen Van Thieu's Government to obstruct and sabotage the agreement. The U.S. Government must honor its word, take responsibility for setting right the truculent attitude of Nguyen Van Thieu's Government, and sign the agreement on time as pointed out in the DRV Government statement."

Subsequently, Peking NCNA released the text of a Government statement issued today which alleged that "the U.S. Government has repeatedly changed its proposals, created offshoot issues, gone back on its own word and raised new obstacles to put off the signing of the agreement on the pretext that it has encountered difficulties in Saigon."

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