Nixon Expected To Be Optimistic

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32314, 4 June 1970, Page 11

Nixon Expected To Be Optimistic

(N Z.PA -Reuter—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, June 3.

President Nixon will go on television tonight to tell the American people that the United States military thrust into Cambodia is a resounding success and will boost his alreadyannounced Vietnam withdrawal plans.

But the President is not expected to make any dramatic announcement, such as a withdrawal of American com[hat troops from Vietnam.

Administration sources said that he planned to give an optimistic report about the success of the United States military drive launched into Cambodia at the beginning of last month and on progress in the Vietnamisation programme to turn over the war to South Vietnamese troops. Study Group I Mr Nixon is due to speak from the White House only | a few hours after the departlure for Saigon o a group of I Congressmen and officials who support his Indo-China policies and are to study the military situation in Cambodia and Vietnam.

The two events, in the view of many observers, are not unrelated and are considered designed to blunt a Senate drive to curtail the president’s war-making powers and to try to restore confidence in the Administration and to the battered stock market after weeks of political turmoil over Indo-China events.

A couple of hours before the Congressmen leave Washington the Senate will vote on an amendment by opponents of military operations in Cambodia.

Mr Nixon’s speech is billed as an interim report until he makes another televised i speech—his fourth on Indo(China since April 20—at the iend of the month to announce fulfilment of his [pledge that all United States (troops will be withdrawn from Cambodia by July 1. Political Future The President has staked his political future on success of the Cambodian operation and his ability to convince (America that the attacks i against Communist sanctu-

anes which began there on May 1 will protect the United States disengagement from South-East Asia and not widen the war. With 115,000 American troops already pulled out of Vietnam, the President is confident that he can meet or beat his new time-table to withdraw an additional 150,000 men by the spring of 1971 and to end ground combat for Americans remaining there by the middle of next year.

Administration officials are hoping that the American people will hail the Cambodian operation as a worthwhile risk and that political dividends will begin to accrue when the President’s Republican Party tries to wrest control of Congress from the 'Democrats in the election [next November. > Amendment Vote The Senate will vote today (on an amendment by opponents of the move to cut off funds. The amendment by Senator Robert Dole (Republican, Kansas) would kill the cut-off proposal if President Nixon determined there were American prisoners of war in Cambodia. But there appears little chance it will pass, and Senator Dole said in a Senate debate yesterday: “I hope to win, but expect to lose.” The original amendment by

Senators , John Sherman Cooper (Republican, Kentucky) and Frank Church (Democrat, Idaho) would cut off funds for retaining United States forces in Cambodia after July 1,. and for supplying military advisers or United States air support to the Cambodian Government.

Opponents of the change proposed by Senator Dole contend that it would allow the President to send troops into Cambodia whenever he determined even one American was being held prisoner there. Kennedy View Senator Edward Kennedy, the assistant Democratic leader, yesterday accused Senator Dole and other Administration supporters of making a political issue out of prisoners of war. “I strongly feel that if we are successfully to obtain humane and fair treatment for them, we must stop tying their rights to unrelated political controversies . . we must stop exploiting their helpless plight to beat the war drums in South-East Asia," he said.

Senator Church argued that the Dole amendment encouraged those in the Administration who favoured a continued United States presence in Cambodia to prop up the Lon Nol Government. The prisoner-of-war question should be negotiated at the Paris peace talks, he said.