Vietnam Peace Offer Report Causes Storm

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30939, 21 December 1965, Page 21

Vietnam Peace Offer Report Causes Storm

(N.Z. Pres* Association-Copyright)

WASHINGTON, December 20. ‘The Johnson Administration found itself caught up today in a stormy dispute over its publication of correspondence reporting. and probing a conditional peace offer from North Vietnam, the Associated Press reported.

The storm overshadowed the central question of whether Hanoi had in fact made an authentic approach for a settlement on its own terms and might yet respond to a U.S. request for clarification of conditions in it.

President Johnson could try to revive the roundabout peace ex* change with President Ho Chi Minh of North Vietnam by sending some kind of new message in Mr Ho’s direction, but Administration officials said today that there had been no decision on any new United States action. The secrecy covers were tom from the peace reports made on Friday afternoon after the St. Louis “PostDispatch” reported that a new peace offer from Hanoi had been rejected by the United States. Dr. Giorgio la Pira. a former Mayor of Florence and

a Left-wing Christian-Demo crat, one of the principal intermediaries in the affair, virtually accused the Secretary of State, Mr Dean Rusk, of sabotaging what Dr. La Pira took to be a hopeful exchange on peace. State Department officials, calling the charge outrageous, said the publication was forced by concern for what they contended was a partially erroneous account which had already become public. ‘Confidence Crisis' Mr Arthur Goldberg, United States Ambassador to the United Nations and another who played the role of go-between, said yesterday the Administration would have “preferred to carry on this discussion in privacy” but was faced with a “crisis of confidence" with the public over the credibility of its peace policy. Mr Goldberg said he did not think disclosure of the exchange over peace negotiations would hurt any chances that now existed for such talks.

“If there is a genuine desire on both sides to negotiate. that desire will surmount whatever the difficulties are of disclosure," he said. Amid denials from Hanoi that any peace feeler had been sent. Dr. La Pira insisted that the offer had been made. Rusk Accused Professor Mario Primlcerio, another intermediary, accused Mr Rusk of sabotaging the bid. “Secretary of State Dean Rusk is to be blamed,” he said, "because he obviously wanted this mission to fail by disclosing in advance what had been done." Later the 24-year-old linguist denied having said this.

but the journalist who inter- ■ viewed him said the quote ■ was correct. Officials in Washington were ’ impressed by the degree of confirmation in the Hanoi broadcast, however, of the main mechanical fact of the reported peace offer—the meeting on November 11 between Dr. La Pira and Professor Primiceria, with Mr Ho and Premier Pham Van Dong. Four Points The North Vietnamese announcement differed in emphasis from the account which Dr. La Pira passed on to Mr Amintore Fanfani, the United Nations General Assembly President, which Mr Fanfani reported in a November 20

letter to President Johnson. The La Pira-Fanfani account said the Vietnamese were prepared for peace negotiations on the basis of the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Vietnam, provided the United States would accept the Communists four-point programme, which Hanoi called its definition of the Geneva treaty, as a basis for the talks. The principal Communist term which the Johnson Administration has been totally unwilling to accept is point three, which requires that the Communists have a decisive role in the future of South Vietnam. President Johnson and Mr Rusk have taken the position that on this issue there can be no compromise. (Earlier Report, Page 14)