Further Saigon Purge Now Likely

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30724, 13 April 1965, Page 17

Further Saigon Purge Now Likely

(N.Z.P A.- Reuter —Copyright) SAIGON, April 12. A purge of South Vietnam’s powerful armed forces council appeared likely today after the removal of two leading military’ figures from their commands. Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky, Air Force commander and one of the most influential figures in the council, said yesterday that “bad” elements in the council would be eliminated.

He told reporters during a visit to Tay Ninh city, about 55 miles north-west of Saigon, that the council would shortly meet to consider important developments. Air Marshal Ky did not identify officers who might be removed from the council.

A South Vietnamese Government spokesman today confirmed that both Admiral Cang and General Dong had' been replaced in their com-: mands. It was reported that both: officers had been chargedj with corruption following a. week-end meeting of the armed forces council. The decision to replace : Admiral Cang and General] Dong had been taken in spite] of strong American objec-] tions. Unconfirmed reports in Saigon indicate that other high-ranking officers in the armed forces council might be toppled soon. SECOND ATTACK Meanwhile, Tokyo reports said North Vietnam today made its second attack in two days on President Johnson’s IOOOm-dollar aid offer to South-east Asian countries. The Hanoi newspaper

“Nhan Dan.” quoted by the North Vietnam news agency, said: “The United States should not hope to dupe the peoples of South-east Asia.” The agency report was ] made in a Hanoi radio ' broadcast monitored in I Tokyo. i The Peking “People’s Daily,” quoted by the New China news agency, today warned the United States that China’s territorial air

space could not be violated and that it must bear the full serious consequences of its military provocations against China. The newspaper was commenting on the air clash last Friday between United States jets and Communist MiGs. NOT RETURNED

In Saigon, the United States disclosed for the first time today that one of the

four United States Navy Phantom jet fighters involved in the skirmish with Communist MiG fighters on Friday had failed to return to its carrier. Search operations for the plane’s two-man crew have been called off. The men have been listed as missing in action. The pilot of the Phantom had radioed that the aircraft was low on fuel and was returning to the carrier after a brief encounter with MiGs. A spokesman said that the missing plane was the aircraft which had shot down one Communist MiG during the dogfight. TURNED DOWN

In Peking, a representative of the South Vietnam National Liberation Front,

the political wing of the Viet Cong, was reported today to have turned down appeals for a peaceful settlement of the Vietnam war.

The head of the permanent mission of the front in Peking, Nguyen Minh Phuong, in an interview with the correspondent of the Indonesian official news agency, Antara, apparently was referring to the appeals made by 17 nonaligned countries to. all parties connected in the Vietnam fighting to find a peaceful solution to the war. Phuong said: “It is the sacred duty” of the AfroAsian peoples to give material assistance including weapons and other war materials to the Viet Cong “to oppose the American aggressors.”