‘Peace in a few weeks’—Rogers

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33067, 7 November 1972, Page 19

‘Peace in a few weeks’—Rogers

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copgright) WASHINGTON, November 6. The American Secretary of State (Mr William Rogers) said today that he thought a Vietnam peace agreement would be signed in a few weeks, after the resumption of talks between President Nixon’s special adviser, Dr Henry Kissinger, and the leading Communist negotiators.

The decision had been made “in Vietnam,” he said, that the war could not be settled by military means, and that the Vietnamese must make the effort to settle it by political means.

He had no doubt that South Vietnam, with a million men under arms, would be able to prevent a Communist military take-over after the war, but, he said, the United States would continue to support the Government of South Vietnam. “The two sides are in agreement on all the basic principles, and there are no basic problems which cannot be resolved very soon,” Mr Rogers said in a television interview. Asked whether an agreement would come in days, weeks, or months, Mr Rogers replied that it would be more

than days, and he guessed that it might be several weeks; but he insisted that it would come in the near future, and that he had no doubt about the outcome.

Speaking on the National Broadcasting Corporation’s “Meet The Press” programme, Mr Rogers said that President Thieu of South Vietnam had made some valid points, but Mr Rogers thought that these could be worked out in fresh talks with the North Vietnamese. “We have made it clear that we respect Mr Thieu’s judgment,” Mr Rogers said, and he went on to emphasise that he did not believe there would be a deep division between the United States and President Thieu. “The views of Washington and Saigon can be reconciled,” he said. Mr Rogers said that the present build-up of the South Vietnamese Air Force —to which aircraft are being supplied not only by the United States, but by South Korea, Taiwan, and Iran — was an effort to reassure the South Vietnamese that they would have the necessary supplies if the agreement did not work out. He quickly added: “That doesn’t mean that we don’t think the agreement will work.” Mr Rogers said that the points still to be settled were related to the supervisory force that would monitor the cease-fire, and the administrative structure that would subsequently arrange democratic elections.

He branded as irresponsible the accusation by the Democratic Presidential candidate, Senator George McGovern, that the peace negotiations were related to President Nixon’s re-election campaign; he described the accusation as “an act of desperation in the final days of the campaign.’’