HANOI VISIT Rocket Specialist With Shelepin

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30952, 7 January 1966, Page 9

HANOI VISIT Rocket Specialist With Shelepin

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) 1 MOSCOW, January 6. A Russian mission to North Vietnam, led by Mr Alexander Shelepin, left Moscow today. He took with him one of the Soviet Union’s top strategic rocket specialists. The mission is expected to fly through Peking, but it was believed unlikely here that the plane would make more than a refuelling stop.

Accompanying Mr Shelepin, one of the country’s leading political figures, is Colonel-General Vladimir Tolubko, deputycommander of the Strategic Rocket Forces.

Russia only admitted officially in Moscow last month that she had supplied North Vietnam with rockets, when the Defence Ministry newspaper, “Red Star” said Soviet missiles and fighters “are guarding the skies of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.” General Tolubko’s inclusion in the Shelepin delegation could indicate that the Soviet Union intends to step up its supplies of these weapons to Hanoi. Mr Averell Harriman, the United States Ambassador-at-large. is due in Bangkok from

Cairo for talks on ending the war.

After talks with Thai leaders in Bangkok Mr Harriman will fly to Tokyo to see the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Eisaku Sato, and the Foreign Minister, Mr Etsusaburo Shiina.