Nixon firm on Vietnam

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33230, 21 May 1973, Page 13

Nixon firm on Vietnam

(N.Z.P A -Reuter—Copyright) NORFOLK (Virginia), May 20.

President Nixon has declared that the United States will not permit the Paris agreements on Indo-China to be destroyed by North Vietnam.

Without specifying what new action he might order, Mr Nixon said in a speech to mark Armed Forces Day that during the long Vietnam war the colours of the United States flag did not run, and he added: “And we can resolve today that they are not going to start running now — neither in SouthEast Asia nor anywhere else in the world.”

Mr Nixon told his audience in the military city of Norfolk that there had been considerable progress in carrying out the provisions of the peace pact signed in Paris, but, he said, “compliance with its promises for peace is still gravely deficient.” North Vietnam had not made good her pledge to account for the Americans missing in action in the North, had refused to withdraw the thousands of troops which she still maintained in Laos and Cambodia, and had poured huge amounts of military equipment into Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam.

“It would be a crime against the memory of those Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for peace in Indo-China, and a serious blow to this country’s ability to lead constructively elsewhere in the world, for us to stand by and permit the settlement reached in Paris to be systematically destroyed by violations such as these,” he declared.

Speaking on a pier with the aircraft-carrier Independence, which has served in waters off Vietnam, in the background, Mr Nixon made no mention of Congressional moves to cut off funds for |the bombing in Cambodia, but he said it would be misguided action to reduce military might just as preparations were being made for talks in Washington next month with the Soviet Union Communist Party leader, Mr Leonid Brezhnev, on arms limitations and trade, and for talks, later in the year, with

America’s allies and Japan.

There was no reference in the President’s speech to the Watergate scandal. According to the State Department, more than 50 Americans died in captivity in North Vietnam. In addition, many of the 1317 Americans still listed as missing in action in IndoChina may have been pilots who were shot down and killed in North Vietnam.