Kissinger firm in cease-fire belief

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33066, 6 November 1972, Page 17

Kissinger firm in cease-fire belief

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) GREENSBORO (North Carolina), November 5. President Nixon’s principal adviser on national security and foreign affairs, Dr Henry Kissinger, remains confident that a Vietnam peace agreement will be concluded. He has told reporters that peace proposals are going forward as planned, and that a cease-fire will emerge.

But Dr Kissinger was not prepared to say much more than that when he spoke briefly to journalists in the Presidential airliner as he flew with Mr Nixon on an election campaign flight to North Carolina, New Mexico, and California.

When he was asked about Mr Nixon’s comment, the day before, that a cease-fire had been agreed to. Dr Kissinger replied: “The President knows what he is talking about.” Mr Nixon had said, in Providence, Rhode Island,, that America was on the brink of a lasting peace, that basic agreement had been reached on a pact to end the fighting throughout al) Indochina. bring home all American troops and prisoners, and ensure the right of the South Vietnamese to determine their own future. “What is left to be done is to work out some details on which there are still some differences.” he said. Dr Kissinger corroborated this. He said that there were some details in the draft cease-fire agreement beyond the nine points already made public. These points had not been released because it had been decided against publishing a "check-list” against

| which another round of talks 'could be compared. He added that it was utter nonsense to suggest that the I United States was stalling to gain time to build up South Vietnam’s fighting forces. Saigon report ■ Henry Kamm, of the New [York Times News Service, i reporting from Saigon, ■ quotes a well-placed source in the Presidential Palace as saying that President Thieu would continue the war if the United States and North 'Vietnam concluded a ceasefire which did not provide for the total withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops. If the United States accepted such an agreement, the source said. South Vietnam would have no ; choice but to continue the struggle by herself. In that case. Mr Thieu would go to the nation, possibly in a referendum, to ask its support for continuing the war. The Saigon Government would expect the United States to continue to furnish the military equipment required to keep up the war, even if the Americans no longer participated in the fighting. Henry Kamm reports that the source cautioned him against assuming that Mr Tnieu’s expressions of opposition to the draft accord were merely a tactical manoeuvre to encourage the United States to resume substantive negotiations with North Vietnam for a more favourable settlement. The South Vietnamese official depicted Mr Thieu as convinced that the guaranteed withdrawal of all North Vietnamese troops, in a period of less than one year, was a sine qua non of the chances for peace. Without it, he said, Mr Thieu feared that any accord would lead to a Communist take-over within six to nine months of its signing.

Thousands protest Military and intelligence estimates placed the number of North Vietnamese troops in the South at 150,000 to 160,000, and as long as they were in South Vietnam, the official said, their force would be capable of upsetting even the most favourable political terms of an agreement.

In Saigon today, thousands of Roman Catholics, shouting, “Down with the Communists!”, demonstrated this morning in support of President Thieu’s stand against the draft peace agreement. “A cease-fire without clear provisions will open the road to more bloodshed,” said a statement distributed by the Roman Catholic Lay Forces, the organisers of the demonstration. Many of the demonstrators were Roman Catholics who fled from North Vietnam after the Communists took control there in 1954. The chanting crowd waved red and gold South Vietnamese flags, and carried banners reading, “Peace in Vietnam,” and “Destroy the Communist Plot to Establish a Communist Government.” A statement distributed by the organisers said: “Today, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people are determined to oppose the military and political solution of the draft agreement between the Americans and Northern Communists. “Point No. 2 of the draft agreement specifies a military solution, which is illogical. This is an in-place cease-fire. It does not set up a frontier. “The Communists are proposing to take over the Government cadres, and to create an uprising to take over the Government of South Vietnam,” it said. “The people of South Vietnam must decide the political future of South Vietnam through free and democratic elections under internnfinnol cnnort/icinn ”