U.S. General Disputes Ky’s View

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31027, 5 April 1966, Page 17

U.S. General Disputes Ky’s View

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) WASHINGTON, April 4. The Commander of the United States Marine Corps disputes the statement of the South Vietnamese Premier, Nguyen Cao Ky, that the city of Da Nang was in a state of revolt, says the “New York Times.” “I don’t consider that we have an insurrection in progress,” General Wallace Greene said. He said that according to reports he had received yesterday morning from the United States command in Da Nang, “the situation was calm out there." He described the recent demonstrations in the city. which is 375 miles north-east of Saigon, as “well-ordered and semi-religious.” In a televised interview General Greene was emphatic in saying that no use of Marine forces from the Da Nang air base was contemplated. It was clear from officials’ private remarks that Washington was gravely alarmed over the possibility of civil war implied by Premier Ky’s threat to send troops to seize Da Nang and to shoot its mayor, said the journal. Officials hoped that, as one put it, Prime Minister Ky was “speaking figuratively” in defining his intentions toward Da Nang in terms of a fight against a Communist revolt. ‘Grim Thought* The thought of South Vietnamese forces fighting each other—particularly in a strategic site such as Da Nang where the presence of a vital United States airbase and 20,000 Marines might force direct American involvement —was a grim one to United States officials. No-one in Washington would say if efforts were being made to restrain Premier Ky, but it was evident that intensive United States diplomatic activitiy was going on to try to obtain a solution. General Greene noted that

military operations in the first corps area—north of Saigon—had been going well recently. In March, he said, there had been a record number of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese defections about 2000.

He referred with evident perplexity to what most officials and analysts now see as the central problem in Vietnam: How to prevent political disintegration while fighting a war. “You really have what seems to me an ironical paradox in that we have a successful military operation going on against the backdrop of political uncertainty and confusion,” the general said. As a measure of the speed with which things are mov-

ing, an interview with the Secretary of State, Mr Dean Rusk, recorded on Friday and broadcast yesterday contained more optimism than any official would claim today even publicly, let alone in private. In the interview, Mr Rusk predicted that the ruling military council would still be in power by the time elections were held. In his comments, General Greene said there was no evidence that infiltration by troops from North Vietnam had increased in connexion with the current political turmoil.

Over a longer period of time, the military have reported a considerable increase in infiltration, to an estimated figure of 4500 men a month.