Harriman Leaves Moscow

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30811, 24 July 1965, Page 18

Harriman Leaves Moscow

(K.Z. Press Association—Copyright) MOSCOW, July 22.' President Johnson’s roving ambassador, Mr Averell Hamman, left Moscow today amid speculation that his two meetings with the Soviet Premier, Mr Alexei Kosygin, had failed to budge the Russians from their tough stand on Vietnam.

“I’m not going to say anything about that,” Mr Harriman told reporters before boardtag a flight to Brussels. He brushed aside any questions dealing with the Vietnam crisis. Administration sources in Washington said Mr Harriman’s talks with Soviet officials had produced no hope Russia might try to persuade North Vietnam tn negotiate the Vietnamese war in the forseeable future. Mr Harriman said the Russians “must be willing to do something serious” on disarmament or, he thought, they would not have agreed to resume the isolation disarmament talks in Geneva. “I don’t think they would go to Geneva unless they were serious,” he said.

Mr Harriman also said he believed progress could be made between the United States and Russia on other relations, especially in trade, in exchange programmes, water desalination experiments and in control of nuclear weapons in outer space. “There was a desire on all sides to expand activities in different fields,” he said. However, he steadfastly refused to disclose any details of his sessions with Mr Kosygin. Mr Harriman met with Mr Kosygin for an hour and 40 minutes yesterday and for three hours on July 15. Mr Harriman will visit Belgrade, Rome and London before he returns to Washington early next month. Western observers said Mr Harriman apparently sought and failed to enlist Soviet intervention in paving the way for negotiations to solve the South-east Asian crisis. Diplomatic observers, however, said his trip to Moscow was encouraging nonetheless because it reopened a high level Soviet-American dialogue which has been dormant since February when the United States began air raids against North Vietnam.