Midway Meeting ‘Probably Turning-Point’

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32007, 6 June 1969, Page 9

Midway Meeting ‘Probably Turning-Point’

(By

FRANK OLIVER.

t. N.Z.PA.

special correspondent) WASHINGTON, June 5. President Nixon is on his way to Midway ; Island for a meeting he probably did not want ' and certainly had not planned. The pronouncements that come out of i that meeting are not, it : is considered in Washington, likely to be world- . shaking. They may even : be innocuous, but the meeting will almost cer- ’ tainly be a milestone on ’ the road to peace in Viets nam and probably a turning-point as well.

It seems clear to most people in Washington that when Mr Nixon made his speech about Vietnam in midMay, a speech which President Thieu had seen and apparently approved before delivery, he was setting up a common policy of the war allies, Saigon included.

Then President Thieu asked for the Midway meeting “to set up a common policy” and he has been busily drumming up support for

his position in South Korea and in Taiwan.

This persuades many in Washington that there is anything but a common , policy between Saigon and Washington to be followed in seeking an end to a war which the majority of Americans are very tired of. One commentator says the Midway meeting will be a ceremonial formality to fortify President Thieu’s shaky position in South Vietnam against the concessions to Hanoi and the N.L.F. “that must inevitably be made if the beginnings of a viable peace are to be negotiated in Paris.” This comes from the liberal magazine, “New Republic.” The “New York Times” speaks about President Thieu’s “pressure play” and expresses the belief that Mr Nixon will not be receptive to the Thieu argument that a political settlement for South Vietnam must be based on the present Constitution. Nor, it continues, is Mr Nixon likely to accept the six points agreed on by Thieu and President Park of South Korea.

What President Thieu and his friends do not appear to understand is the state of public opinion in this country. The vast majority of people in the United States want the war ended and that dominates thinking about the

whole problem. One headline this last week-end asked, “How much time has Nixon got?” Public pressure definitely seems to be mounting for something, almost anything, that will get the Paris negotiations out of their stagnation and on the road towards peace. For some time, the Nixon Administration has been free of the intense criticism which bedevilled the last part of the Johnson term and which was mainly responsible for the Democrats being tossed out of office. But now impatience is showing and Senator Edward Kennedy who, as they say, knows his political onions, has been almost savagely critical and he has had warm support for his speeches from Senator Mike Mansfield, his leader and a powerful Senate voice. Senator Kennedy, says the press, has been deluged with letters since his original “Hamburger Hill” speech. Some have called him traitor and an ambitious politician. Others have praised him for being a brave man who disregards political risks in saying what he believes and he has been called “the last hope we have for peace.” Latest reports are that more than half the letters support the words and actions of the Senator.

Some sections of public opinion have been troubled

by statements that “new offensives” are under way in Vietnam by the American forces and statements from the White House that the United States is not responsible for any escalation of the fighting. The newest phase about the war which disturbs many is “keeping maximum pressure on the enemy,” while the Paris talks go on. To many this seems to be somewhat aggressive and at odds with the Administration’s stated objective, the search for peace. Some observers say they cannot see why Hanoi should ease off the fighting, let alone think of withdrawal of forces while maximum pressure is kept on. Time, says a correspondent in the “New York Times,” is becoming the worry of the White House as Republicans discover how long it takes to make modest progress in Paris.

As seen by most people the big question to be resolved in the Midway Islands meeting, or before if possible, has to do with the nature of the Saigon regime that would conduct the popular elections in South Vietnam if and when the Paris negotiators agree on terms and purposes. President Thieu is standing firm that the Constitution must go on in its present form but that

proposition is not viewed in quite the same light in Washington, observers believe. Press comment says that official comments on the visit to Saigon by the Secretary of State (Mr William Rogers) broadcast by the Voice of America indicated that the Secretary did raise the proposition, which President Thieu did not wish to hear, that only an interim coalition Government would be acceptable to the Hanoi-N.L.F. negotiators in Paris. The V.O.A. indicated that Mr Rogers told President Thieu that it would be up to the South Vietnamese to determine whether future elections and the possible creation of an interim government could be worked out within the framework of the existing South Vietnamese Constitution and that there was the possibility of amending that Constitution. The “New Republic” commentator says bluntly that Mr Nixon’s problem before and at Midway “is to avoid the appearance of the coercion that is surely necessary if the political basis for a settlement in Paris is to be found.” The “New York Times” says the only way for Mr Nixon to bring home to Mr Thieu and his backers the seriousness of the American intention to end the war is to present the Saigon leaders

with a • time-table for American troop reductions when he meets Mr Thieu in the Midway Islands. The former Paris negotiator, Mr Averell Harriman, has expressed the belief that Hanoi would respond to American reductions by withdrawals of its own and that a degree of tacit disengagement could thus be achieved. Mr Harriman recently disclosed that when the air war over the North was suspended, Hanoi pulled out most of its troops from the two northern provinces of South Vietnam and took some of them 200 miles north. This, it is stated, was followed by Mr Johnson’s ordering all-out pressure on the enemy because without that South Vietnam would not enter the Paris talks. The “New York Times” winds up its comment by saying that the willingness of both Saigon and Hanoi to negotiate seriously might be significantly increased by the single American move of announcing a troop reduction timetable.

The size and quality of the delegation Mr Nixon will take to Midway Islands with him is indicative of the seriousness of the forthcoming discussions and their vital importance if the peace negotiations are to move at better than the snail’s pace of the past.