Good U.S. Start With Kremlin

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30576, 20 October 1964, Page 17

Good U.S. Start With Kremlin

(NJ!. Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, October 19. President Johnson would tell Congressional leaders today that the United States had made a “good beginning” in relations with the new leaders of Russia and hoped the Kremlin would join in renewed efforts to block any further spread of nuclear weapons, Associated Press reported.

Mr Johnson emphasised both these points last night in a report to the nation in which he also spoke of the possible use by China of “nuclear blackmail” against other countries, now that it had exploded its first test bomb. He said, furthermore, that what he called China’s “expensive and demanding effort (to build nuclear weapops) tempts other states to equal folly—nuclear spread is dangerous to all mankind.” “We continue to believe,” Mr Johnson said, “that the struggle against nuclear

spread is as much in thel Soviet interest as in our j own. We will be ready to 1 join with them and all the 1 world—in working to avoid i it.” i At the same time the Pre-

sident announced in his radio-television address that Washington will continue to support the limited nuclear test ban treaty which the United States, Russia, Britain and more than 100 other nations signed last year. France and China did not sign. CALL MADE “We call on the world—especially Red China—to join the nations which have signed that treaty,” Mr Johnson said.

The meeting with Congressional leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, was scheduled for the White House early this afternoon. It was arranged at the end of last week. Officials said that the President would cover substantially the same ground and the same major points which he made in his television broadcast on last week’s sensational developments in Russia and China. Mr Johnson’s reaction to the removal of the Soviet Premier, Mr Khrushchev, and its significance for the United States, as he saw it, covered

(both the possibility of dangerous future crises and the hope that the new Kremlin leaders would undertake new measures to strengthen world peace. Earlier yesterday, Mr John-

son sent greetings to the new Prime Minister, Mr Kosygin, and said he hoped “our Governments will work constructively in attempting to resolve the urgent international problems facing us in the world.” In his address last night. Mr Johnson had words of

praise as well as criticism for the deposed Mr Khrushchev, saying that he was “guilty of dangerous adventure” as in the Berlin and Cuban crises but that “he learned from mistakes and he was not blind to realities.” Of Mr Khrushchev's successors, Mr Johnson said they are younger men who may be “less rooted in the past,” and they are said “to be realistic.” FOUR POINTS “We can hope that they will share with us our greet objective—the prevention of nuclear war,” he said. He said the change in the Moscow high command meant at least four things for Americans: First—The men in the Kremlin “remain dedicated, dangerous Communists” and the United States must maintain “steady vigilance” at a time of trouble in the Communist bloc because United States strength “holds the balance firm against danger.” Second—“ There will be turmoil in the Communist world.” But the President said that the preoccupation of Kremlin chieftains with Communist problems is not all bad “because men who are busy with internal problems may not be tempted to reckless external acts.” TEST SITE

Third—The forces working for greater independence in Communist-governed Eastern Europe “will continue to have our sympathy” and he added: “We will not give up our hope of building new

bridges to. these people.” Fourth—The course now followed by the United States “must continue to prove that we are ready to get on with the work of peace.”

In reporting on the Chinese nuclear explosion, Mr Johnson added some detail not previously made public.

He said that the test was conducted at a site near Lop Nor Lake in the Takla Makan Desert of the Chinese Central Asian province of Sinkiang. United States intelligence had watched the building of the test site there for several years, Mr Johnson said.