‘U.S. Will Persist In Its Strategy’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31145, 23 August 1966, Page 17

‘U.S. Will Persist In Its Strategy’

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter —Copyright >

OTTAWA, August 22.

President Johnson yesterday reaffirmed his commitment to restraint and patience in Vietnam, and told the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr Lester Pearson, that the United States would persist in its present strategy.

The President told Mr Pearson in talks in the Canadian village of Chancook that it was necessary to hold to the present course unless North Vietnam expressed willingness to negotiate and halt its attacks on the South.

The Presidential press secretary, Mr Bill Moyers, also reported that Mr Pearson reaffirmed that Canada’s good offices were available to all concerned and it would not relax either its interest or its efforts to keep channels open. In a late afternoon speech on the small island of Campobello, the summer home of the late President Franklin Roosevelt, Mr Johnson said that the United States knew that a great Power could influence events as much by withdrawing as by using its power. But when peace meant the sacrifice of someone’s freedom this was unacceptable.

Mr Johnson, who left later

to return to Washington, appeared to draw a parallel between Mr Roosevelt’s stand against aggression and his own policy in Vietnam.