U Thant’s Views

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31440, 5 August 1967, Page 14

U Thant’s Views

Sir,—Our Prime Minister claims to agree with U Thant that the issues involved in the Vietnam war are too complex for facile-sounding solutions. I do not see this statement anywhere in the report of U Thant’s address. Rather, U Thant presents the Vietnam war in all its simplicity: that the United States must recognise that it is not a war of Communist aggression, but one of national independence. Mr Holyoake Claims to agree with U Thant, but in fact agrees only with a fictitious viewpoint which he attributes to U Thant However, all those urging American and New Zealand withdrawal will take heart from Mr Holyoake’s apparent espousal of their cause; his quoted statement is a paraphrase of the anti-war movement’s basic position. “An impartial observer must surely recognise that in South Vietnam the vast majority of the people are adamantly determined not to live under a regime imposed by outside force." He might have added that North Vietnam feels the same way.— Yours, etc., OWEN WILKES. Allandale, August 3, 1967.

Sir,—The recent statement by U Thant on the Vietnam war was to be expected after his handling of the MiddleEast crisis, and there should be no doubts now as to where his sympathies lie. America and her allies will realise, perhaps when it is too late, that Vietnam is being used by the Communists as a chop-ping-block for the destruction of their enemies, and this operation is now under way with the full backing of that anti-American organisation, the United Nations. U Thant’s efforts to cover up the aggressors now appear to have the support of the church through their spokesmen, the Rev. D. M. Taylor, notwithstanding that communism in all its forms is recognised throughout the world as antiChristian.—Yours, etc., L.G.W. August 4, 1967.