Close Attention To Reports

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31262, 7 January 1967, Page 13

Close Attention To Reports

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) WASHINGTON, Jan. 6. Harrison Salisbury’s reports from Hanoi are being followed by officials and diplomats in Washington with the closest attention, James Reston of the “New York Times” reports. Reston writes:— There are several reasons for this. First, the Communists are clearly in the midst of at least a tactical review of their military and maybe even their political policy. The Communist troops in Laos have been strangely quiet. Usually they increase their activity in November, but this winter they have not. Also, there is some evidence that the organised units from North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, after a long series of defeats, have been hesitating to commit large units to battle and relying more on small guerrilla raids. This may mean nothing more than a regrouping for

larger battles to come. Western diplomats In Hanoi who have talked to Salisbury have reported to their governments that they see nothing as yet in Salisbury’s inquiries to imply any significant shift in Hanoi’s opposition to a negotiated settlement. Yet one of the major problems in assessing the situation, even for western diplomats in the North Vietnamese capital, is the difficulty

of having eve nthe most casual conversation with Hanoi officials, and this Salisbury has managed to do. They have told him of course, what they wanted him to report, and shown him only what they wanted him to see. It is known that the Eastern European Communists have been urging Hanoi for some time to step up their propaganda against the American bombing in the North, and

the decision to grant Salisbury a visa to go there may be nothing more than a propaganda plot, but we do not yet know. The Communists do not always follow the traditional procedures of diplomacy. At the height of the Cuban missile crisis in October, 1962, the Soviet Embassy in Washington passed a highly significant message to the United States Government through John Scali, of the American Broadcasting Company. In fact, the first diplomatic break in the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1949 came as a result of a series of questions sent by Kingsbury Smith, of the Hearst newspapers, to Joseph Stalin. In short, Harrison Salisbury has at least started a dialogue with Hanoi. It may lead nowhere, but he is the only American reporter who knows what they are saying in detail, and his enterprising adventure is not over yet.

Public Holiday.—The Rhodesian Government plans to make November 11, the date in 1965 on which the country rebelled against Britain, a permanent public holiday, a spokesman for the office of the Prime Minister (Mr Smith) announced.—(Salisbury, January 6.)