Secret Agreement To Be Studied

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32078, 28 August 1969, Page 15

Secret Agreement To Be Studied

(N.Z. P. A. ‘Reuter—-Copyright)

WASHINGTON, August 25.

A Senate foreign relations sub-committee announced yesterday that it would hold hearings on the secret United States-Thailand contingency defence plan, signed in 1965, which had been the centre of a dispute between the Senate, the Defence Department, and the Bangkok Government.

Senator Stuart Symington, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that he planned to hold hearings on the document in late September. “Discussions about who will command the joint forces under the plan in question, or where and how the plan will be made available for review, is secondary to the reasons for its drafting, and the manner fn which that work was undertaken, and the degree of co-ordination within tbe Administration as well as with the Congress,” he said in a statement. The President has given Vietnam strategy high priority during his working holjday at the summer White

House in San Clemente, California. Congressional fears of American involvement in another Vietnam-type land war in Asia prompted sharp criticism of the secret defence contingency agreement between Washington and Bangkok, Apparently annoyed by the speeches, the Thai Government then surprised Washington this week by saying that it wanted to start talks on the immediate withdrawal of the 48,000 United States servicemen in Thailand. American officials said that they were willing to enter into discussions, but indicated that they had a slower timetable in mind by using such words as “gradual reduction” and “adjustment.”