Neutralisation Favoured

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31187, 11 October 1966, Page 17

Neutralisation Favoured

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) WASHINGTON, October 10. Senator J. William Fulbright, a critic of the Administration’s Vietnam policy, has recommended to President Johnson a Senate report on the merits of neutralisation as a way of bringing peace to Southeast Asia. The study, drawn up by four Princeton University professors for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was made public today. When it was completed earlv in June, Senator Fulbright. chairman of the committee. wrote to President Johnson saying the report's recommendations “merit the attention of you and your staff.” The Senator added in his letter that “sooner or later conditions will develon in South-east Asia which will require a stable pattern of peaceful relationships among States in that area. “Possible Pattern”

“The enclosed study suggests one possible pattern and may, if properly pursued, offer a method by which steps can be taken to restore peace in the area without damage to the national interests of the United States.”

The study concluded that neutralisation of one or more countries in South-east Asia deserved serious consideration, when viewed as an alternative to “a situation renuiring the continued presence of a large American military force in South Vietnam for a period of 20 years or more.”

At the same time, it said it might be argued that neutralisation would not effectively bar covert or in-

direct Communist aggression, and thus “the prospects for successful aggression under neutralisation might well increase.” Senator Fulbright, in making the study public, said: “It is abundantly evident that

neither the United States nor Communist China, as the two principal powers involved, is willing to concede domination to the other.

“Neutralisation is perhaps a way out, and it deserves to be explored in the United States Government and in the United Nations.” “Several Alternatives”

The authors of the study, Professors Cyril Black, Richard Falk, Klaus Knorr and Oran Young, said there were several alternatives, ranging from the neutralisation of South Vietnam alone or neutralisation of both North and South Vietnam together with other States in the area.

The study said the advantage of neutralisation was that the States concerned “would gain freedom from

outside aggression and interference, to the extent the neutralisation treaty proved effective.” At the same time the bigger Powers guaranteeing the neutralisation would not “become involved and entangled ... in the sort of diplomatic and military conflicts that have bedevilled the : area since the Second World I War.” Even under the most favourable circumstances, however, “neutralisation in Southeast Asia is not likely to be as effective as it has been in Europe” because the Asian countries were in relatively early stages of development. “Moreover,” the study said, “it is hardly to be expected that political revolutions and

civil strife in South-east Asia can be brought to a halt for some time.

“The argument in favour of neutralisation under these circumstances is that this ‘normal’ level of upheavals would be less likely to lead to conflicts of international proportions under such an arrangement than under a policy of continued occupation by American forces.” The report said that any negotiations on neutralisation should be conducted as privately as possible, and that the best time would be when all parties to the Vietnam war appeared relatively strong but when none seemed to have any real prospects for winning in the foreseeable future.