VIETNAM PEACE BIDS CONTINUE

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30948, 3 January 1966, Page 9

VIETNAM PEACE BIDS CONTINUE

Pope And De Gaulle Add To Calls (N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, January 2. President Johnson’s Vietnam peace drive gained strength yesterday with the calls of Pope Paul and President de Gaulle. The Pope—believed gravely worried that the war will grow dangerously unless negotiations begin—stepped up his personal campaign by making urgent appeals to the Soviet Union and China to intervene to bring about peace.

They were the first Papal peace messages to either country.

The Pope also renewed his appeals to the leaders of North and South Vietnam to halt the war. In Paris, President de Gaulle said France would be ready to co-operate towards achievement of peace through contact with rival parties

“when the moment comes.” He said both sides should halt intervention beyond their own frontiers. President Johnson's globetrotting envoys were on the move again today with secrecy still cloaking the progress of their mission. For Mr Averell Harriman, who yesterday handed over a personal message from Mr Johnson to President Tito of Jugoslavia, the scene shifted to India. He left Belgrade last night for talks with Indian leaders in New Delhi. India, with Poland and Canada, is a member of the international Control Commission for Vietnam.

Ended In Europe The soundings in Europe by the U.S. chief delegate to the United Nations, Mr Arthur Goldberg, ended last night with a meeting in London with the British Prime Minister, Mr Harold Wilson. Mr Goldberg later left by air for Chicago. A Washington announcement said President Johnson was also sending the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Mr C. Mennen Williams, as peace-probe emissary to Africa. Mr Williams later flew to Algiers. Another envoy, Mr Thomas Mann, the United States Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, had secret talks with President Gustavo Diaz-Ordaz of Mexico.

The Pope’s message to North Vietnam asked “all those responsible not to commit acts which could lead to a renewal of violent combat and bombings.” To the South Vietnamese Premier, Nguyen Van Thieu, he said he welcomed “an eventual truce and the suspension of bombings on North Vietnam.”

Appeal To Russia Appealing for Soviet help in Vietnam, Pope Paul told the Soviet President, Mr Nikolai Podgorny: “The conflict which spills blood on this unhappy country constitutes a grave menace for the peace of the world. “We are convinced that an intervention of your Government would honour it in the sight of history. “It could have great weight in inducing the warring parties to suspend hostilities as a prelude to a definitive pacification permitting the work

of reconstructing the country in independence.”

The Pope’s message to China was addressed to the Communist Party chairman, Mao Tse-tung. “The prestige which China enjoys today rightly calls world attention to her,” Pope Paul said. “An intervention on her part would honour her in the eyes of humanity and could permit a hard-tried people to start again in peace on the work of reconstruction made

impossible by continuance of the war.”

The Pope’s message to President Ho Chi Ninh follows the North Vietnam leader’s apparently intransigent reply to a Christmas message from the Pope. Not Dismayed

Pope Paul has evidently refused to be dismayed by the tone of President Ho’s reply. In his latest message, the Pontiff said: “We insist yet again that nothing be neglected to reach the peace so earnestly desired and which will deliver humanity from a terrible threat.”

A message to President Johnson was also dispatched with the President’s special envoy, Mr Arthur Goldberg, who met the Pope last Wednesday. In Paris, President de Gaulle, in a New Year address to foreign diplomats, said peace could be restored only by organised contacts between ail interested parties and provided each halted intervention beyond its own frontiers.

France would be ready to co-operate towards the achievement of peace through contact between the parties “when the moment comes.” General de Gaulle said that after “urgent and moving” recommendations by Pope Paul, the will of all peoples and the actions of al! States should be directed towards peace. In Belgrade, Mr Harriman said he had had a good talk with President Tito. He said he would go to Teheran after New Delhi.