Site 200 Miles In North Hit

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31645, 3 April 1968, Page 15

Site 200 Miles In North Hit

(N.Z Press Association —Copyright) SAIGON, April 2. American bombers struck within 81 miles of Hanoi yesterday but the Defence Department said there was no violation of President Johnson’s day-old limited bombing halt.

United States military spokesmen today said Navy fighterbombers hit North Vietnamese targets yesterday about 200 miles north of the Demilitarised Zone.

One was a radar site at Thanh Hoa, 81 miles south of Hanoi.

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said “any raids that have been conducted since the President’s speech are obviously within the framework of the President’s speech.” In his speech. President Johnson said he had ordered an end to raids in North Vietnam “except fa the area north ot the Demilitarized Zone where the continuing enemy build-up directly threatens allied forward positions and where the movements of their troops and supplies are clearly related to that threat” Defence Department officials noted that the biggest concentration of North Vietnamese population was in the Red River Delta area.

near Hanoi and Haiphong, which were not hit in the new raids yesterday. Diplomatic observers said the President’s formulation was deliberately left vague to give it a degree of flexibility, which was felt to be desirable from a tactical point of view to cope with unforeseen contingencies. To put an exact definition on what the President meant could conceivably prove a hardship at a future point, they said.