Foggy Day in Londontown

Among the gilt mirrors and airy hangings of Marlborough House, it seemed a wizard idea: Something should be Done about Viet Nam. The 21 delegations gathered in London last week for the 14th Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference overwhelmingly approved the notion. But in the execution, it proved a bit more complex. The plan was to send a five-nation team, headed by Britain's Prime Minister Harold Wilson, to Hanoi, Saigon, Peking, Moscow and Washington to seek a way to end the war. The team's spread of political ideologies, ranging from the demagogic leftism of Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah through the balanced anti-Communism of Nigeria's Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, would seem to guarantee the group a hearing in every capital. After all, the argument ran, the Commonwealth speaks for a quarter of the world's population, hence represents a microcosm of world opinion.

But no sooner had Wilson gaveled the motion into debate than a fog of dissent sprang up around it. Tanzania's President Julius Nyerere, recent host to Peking's Premier Chou Enlai, complained that the idea unfairly "put China in the dock," adding that "if Hanoi refuses to see the committee, the whole thing will be a blow to the Commonwealth." Pakistan's President Mohammed Ayub Khan argued that Wilson also should not be a member. Ayub's reason: Britain is too deeply committed to the U.S. to join a truly "nonaligned" peace initiative. Malaysia's Tunku Abdul Rahman -- recipient of British arms and advice in his battle with Indonesia -- feared that the team might "reward aggression" in Southeast Asia.

Nkrumah said he'd be delighted to go, but demanded that Commonwealth-member Australia first withdraw her 900 troops from South Viet Nam. Even Moscow got into the act with an Izvestia editorial that took the Commonwealth to task for a lack of "clarity." After all, the Russians sniffed, how can a fact-finding committee be truly impartial if it doesn't even condemn the U.S. in advance? "There is no demand [in the proposal] to withdraw American troops from Viet Nam," chided Izvestia, "nor to stop the barbarian bombardments of North Viet Nam."

Though Wilson's scheme had the backing of the U.S. and at least tacit support from 16 Commonwealth members, there was more than a little doubt that the mission would get under way next month as Wilson hoped. Even if the Russians ultimately agree to the team's visit, Peking and Hanoi probably will not. Last April, when Wilson's emissary, Patrick Gordon Walker, set off on a similar mission, they would not even receive him.

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