‘WAR INCREASE APPROVED’

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31441, 7 August 1967, Page 9

‘WAR INCREASE APPROVED’

Johnson’s Envoys Make Report (N Z. Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, August 6. President Johnson was told yesterday by two special envoys that the allied nations believed pressure should be stepped up in the Vietnam war and agreed on the need to continue bombing the North. General Maxwell Taylor, one of the emissaries, said after a meeting with the President that now was the time for a “maximum effort” by the six allies fighting in Vietnam.

“Everybody was for it,” General Taylor said. “The question is how,” the “New York Times” News Service reported.

The two men reported no pledges of Increased troop commitments from the other allies, and they insisted that they had asked for none. However, General Taylor indicated that he and the other envoy, a Washington lawyer, Mr Clark Clifford, had made clear to the allied leaders that more troops would be needed if more pressure were to be applied. “Everybody agreed,” he said.

“We can’t be too critical of the support we are getting,” General Taylor said. He added that, taking into account all forms of support, the allies in the Vietnam conflict were giving more aid than during the Korean conflict Need To Bomb

In a two-hour White House meeting with the President, the envoys told Mr Johnson that in their tour of six Far East capitals they found all the allies agreed on the need to continue bombing North Vietnam.

General Taylor and Mr Clifford also told the President that the consensus they brought back from the six' nations was that the allies were following the right course in the war and that “they" believe the progress made on the ground in South Vietnam has been appreciable.” Mr Clifford said the allies all understood the limited goal of the war, “self-deter-mination for South Vietnam,” and all recognised that their own welfare, future and free-

dom were involved in the conflict

Mr Clifford indicated that another summit meeting of the Vietnam allies would be held, but probably not before late this year. All the allies suggested waiting until after the September 3 Presidential election in South Vietnam and some suggested waiting until after the Legislative elections of October 22, he said. Mr Clifford also said that they found during their tour “again and again the statement made that the war was incorrectly described as a South Vietnamese war, and that it should be called "the war of South-east Asia’.” Asked if renaming it “the war of South-east Asia” would mean the possibility of an extension of the conflict, General Taylor said it was simply a reminder that the outcome

in South Vietnam would have a bearing on the situation throughout South-east Asia.

More Troops General Taylor told reporters that he would not make any prediction that more troops would be sent to Vietnam by allied nations. But both he and Mr Clifford indicated that they expected increases after there had been more discussions in the countries concerned—Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, South Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand.

There had been reports in Washington, described officially as being unfounded, that President Johnson might order another bombing pause over North Vietnam after South Vietnam’s elections in September.