Still Wishing, Still Nothing

The four-day cease-fire that marked Viet Nam's Lunar New Year was launched amid hopes that it would grow into an extended truce. Instead, Hanoi used the Tet respite for reinforcement and replenishment of its troops below the 17th parallel. Army trucks rumbled down canopied jungle trails into South Viet Nam and cargo vessels sped with impunity down the coast, carrying more arms and supplies to the Communist forces than they had been able to deliver in all of January.

Still, the outside world's attention was wishfully galvanized by signs and suggestions that peace talks might be in the offing. In Washington, White House Aide Walt Rostow observed that "an extremely interesting and delicate phase" had been reached in diplomatic efforts to move the war to the conference table. At New Mexico State University, General Maxwell Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Saigon, declared that conditions for a negotiated peace had improved. The fact that U.S. bombers did not immediately head north when the truce ended at week's end served to heighten speculation.

200 Signals. The peace hopes had grown out of a well-hedged hint, dropped three weeks ago by Hanoi's Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh, that Hanoi "could" discuss peace terms -- provided the U.S. stopped bombing the North, permanently and unconditionally. The Administration reacted warily. After all, in the past two years, U.S. officials figure that they have detected and dissected some 200 diplomatic signals concerning negotiations.

In response to Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin's assertion in London that a halt in the bombing could lead to negotiations, the White House answered: "Mr. Kosygin commented on the military action the U.S. should take, but made no mention of the military action the other side should take."

The President replied in similar if less acerbic terms to a message from Pope Paul VI expressing the hope that the Tet truce "may open the way for negotiations for a just and stable peace."

A blunter response was offered by Conservative William F. Buckley Jr., on a visit to Saigon, when asked whether the U.S. should extend the Tet truce.

"The answer is not only no," said Buckley, "but forgawdsakes no."

Calm & Clarity. Hanoi's vaguely pacific and calculatedly public overtures were followed by a propaganda barrage, emanating mostly from Russia and Eastern Europe, aimed at convincing Washington that Hanoi, like Barkis, was willing. At home, the echoes from this campaign could be heard in various appeals to the President to stop the bombing. They came from a group of 28 prominent clergymen, from 400 former Peace Corpsmen, from thousands of "peace fasters" in 200 cities who restricted themselves to diets of rice and liquids for three days.

As an antidote to what he regarded as an outbreak of peace fever, the President prescribed a dose of Dean Rusk pragmatism. During a press conference, Rusk restated the U.S. position that "you can't stop this war simply by stopping a half of it." It was not a crowd-pleasing role for Rusk: some newsmen had arrived hoping for news of an important move toward peace. But the Secretary carried it off with characteristic calm and clarity.

He noted that the Communists had mounted "a systematic campaign" to end the U.S. bombing of North Viet Nam, "without any corresponding military action on their side." All they have offered, he emphasized, is "talks--talks which are thus far formless and with out content." Without some reciprocal move from the North, said Rusk, the U.S. has only two choices--to hit Communist supply trucks before they reach the South, or to "pick this ammunition out of our men." He squelched reports that negotiations were imminent. "All channels remain open and are being utilized," he said. "Unfortunately, I cannot report to you any tangible forward movement."

Contact Points. What channels? They are numerous and easily accessible. Both U.S. and North Vietnamese diplomats are stationed in such capitals as Moscow, Warsaw, Cairo, Algiers, Rangoon, Prague, Belgrade, Bucharest and Budapest. Moscow and Warsaw are considered the most likely contact points --largely because the resident U.S. ambassadors, Llewellyn Thompson in the Soviet Union and John Gronouski in Poland, have close links with the White

House. Indeed, talks arranged by U.S. Ambassador to Saigon Henry Cabot Lodge were about to begin in Warsaw late last year when they were suddenly aborted, either as a consequence of the U.S. bombing raids near Hanoi or because the Communists simply opted out.

Algiers, a center of Viet Cong diplomatic activity, is a particularly likely rendezvous. Some officials consider it noteworthy that Poland's Jerzy Michalkowski, a foreign-office troubleshooter who has been in Hanoi and is also closely in touch with U.S. diplomacy, is now in the Algerian capital. Rangoon is still another possibility, particularly since U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur Goldberg and U.N. Secretary-General U Thant are scheduled to be there at the same time late this month. Goldberg plans to visit Rangoon during a tour of a dozen European and Asian nations, and while he insists that his trip is not "a peace mission," few who are familiar with his negotiating prowess would be surprised if he sought to contact North Vietnamese diplomats en route.

A variety of other conduits could be used to transmit messages--including newsmen and junketing politicians. There was even some short-lived speculation that Democratic Senator Robert F. Kennedy, during a briefing in Paris this month, had been given a peace feeler to relay to Johnson. Actually, about all that Bobby got was a muffled replay of Trinh's implied proffer of peace talks after a bombing halt.

Like a Beagle. With so many channels for secret diplomacy open to Hanoi, the Administration is understandably disturbed that the recent feelers--or "flickers,"in Washington parlance--have been so plainly visible. This only reinforces Johnson's suspicions that Hanoi's strategy is aimed simply at winning a reprieve from the air war.

And with good reason. Though U.S. air losses, in combat and on the ground, totaled a punishing 1,750 fixed-wing craft and helicopters as of last December--473 of them over the North--the Administration believes that the bombing has made a major difference in the situation. Communist main force units, physically bruised, psychologically hurting and short of supplies because of the bombings, have avoided large-scale pitched battles for three months. Infiltration of troops from the North is believed by the Defense Department to have dipped drastically--from 6,950 to 1,600 men a month--since midyear, though no figures are available as yet for the final months of 1966.

The President recently confided to a group of White House fellows: "I chase every peace feeler, just as my little beagle chases a squirrel." The White House may not keep track of squirrel kills, but it does maintain a running audit of tangible offers from Hanoi. So far, as the Tet truce came to a close and the latest flicker appeared to be flickering out, the figure remained zero.

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