U.S. BOMBING ‘TO BLUNT OFFENSIVE’

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32886, 8 April 1972, Page 1

U.S. BOMBING ‘TO BLUNT OFFENSIVE’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) WASHINGTON, April 7. President Nixon is ready to bomb North Vietnam as hard and as long as necessary to blunt the Hanoi offensive being conducted in South Vietnam by 35,000 tank-supported troops, according to officials in Washington today.

Waves of American fighter-bombers began to attack the North yesterday in the heaviest strikes there since before the bombing halt in 1968. The President, who flew to his Florida home soon after the new air offensive began, ordered the move to try to stem the Communist advance in the South and to save his

I policy of Vietnamisation of . the war by pulling out American troops. While the President has J restricted the bombing to just i below the 20th parallel and I away from Hanoi, Haiphong and other heavily populated areas, he is determined to . conduct resolute action against military targets to re- " iieve the pressure against the , South Vietnamese, according > to officials. > LINE STABILISED i Lieutenant-General John Vogt, staff director of the ’ United States Air Force, said in Washington that the battle line in Vietnam had stabilised during the last two days but warned that North Vietnam still had the strength to sustain its offensive for some weeks* The general said that the North Vietnamese appeared to be well organised in the attack; but how long they could keep it up "obviously would depend a lot on the losses they sustain for the next few days." Members of the Senate r Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committee who attended the briefing said the situation was serious. HEAVY RAIDS President Nixon clearly decided that heavy raids on the North were the minimum ; action required to protect his ■ policy of Vietnamisation and I his credibility with the • American people in a Presi- ; dential election year. Yet by ordering geographic , limits to the bombing he apparently felt he could safely • meet any political attacks against him in Washington ; while signalling to the Soviet Union and China that he was ' not trying to destroy North . Vietnam. Administration officials ■ emphasised that the Presii dent had no intention of throwing in the 6000 combat troops who are among the 95,000 American military

men still in Vietnam, or of reversing the Vietnamisation programme by returning any of those United States soldiers already withdrawn. CHINESE DETENTE The feeling within the Government is that the resumed air attacks win not imperil the President’s scheduled visit to the Soviet Union next month or wreck the detente he began with China during his recent trip to Peking..