THE UNBELIEVED CITY

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

THE UNBELIEVED CITY

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.) WASHINGTON, October 10. Washington, just now, is a very troubled city. The world simply will not believe Washington wants peace in Vietnam.

Preparations to send another 75,000 men to Vietnam are under way. Hanoi will not negotiate. With more American troops there than the whole South Vietnamese Army it has become definitely “America’s War,” and to top everything General Eisenhower says this country must win and indicates he would not rule out nuclear war.

All these things weigh heavily but no one of them more heavily than the cool reception given round the world to the Goldberg proposals. It is not as James Reston says, that they are unfair or un-

realistic but simply that they are not believed. A factor in that disbelief apparently is that instead of the Manila conference being regarded as an effort towards peace it is being looked on in some quarters of the globe as a summit war conference. Even some sources that did not quite believe this do believe it was arranged more for domestic political purposes than as a peace-seeking meeting. The truth seems to be that the meeting is arranged in a sincere effort to seek peace and it happens that it may well suit the political purposes of the President’s party but only the latter half of the business is believed abroad.

Even the most powerful Government cannot be effective, comments Reston, if it is not trusted and if thoughtful men, including friends and allies, scan official statements and actions to discover possible motives other than the stated ones. It is impossible to be in this

capital these days, read what is written and hear what is spoken by officials without arriving at the firm conviction that the President is sincerely seeking an honourable end to the Vietnam conflict. If there is a more sincere man than Arthur Goldberg, they say, no one knows where to find him and he would never have made his U.N. speech if there had not been behind it the complete sincerity of the Administration, but overseas almost no-one, and especially not Hanoi, Peking or Moscow, believes it.

This is the tragedy of the situation to-day. It is said, and absolutely believed in Washington that the President is ready to call a cease-fire. He is ready to announce a phased withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam. He is willing to dismantle those, expensive bases now existing all over Vietnam. He is prepared to let Vietnamese of both halves of the country decide their future even if

this means a coalition with the Communists and he is prepared to bless the idea of complete neutralisation of the whole of South-east Asia —but no-one will believe him. There has been talk here for months of the so-called “credibility gap” between the Administration on the one hand and the press and the people on the other. Beside it the credibility gap between Washington and most of the rest of the world takes on the appearance of a yawning chasm.

Thus the problem that presents itself is how to achieve credibility. Clearly some step which goes further than anything Ambassador Goldberg said appears to be necessary. There is no indication at this point about what steps the Administration may be considering but some sections of the press are suggesting that perhaps this would be a good moment to have *a long pause” in the bombing of North Vietnam.