A Place to Talk

Like two boxers at the opening bell, the U.S. and North Viet Nam warily circled the ring, each testing the other's reach. Each side was determined to yield nothing in advance, and each was probing for an opening that would lead to a position of strength. Lyndon Johnson characteristically described the situation in the midst of a conversation in his White House office. Striking a prizefighter's pose, he said: "I'm holding my left hand open and out in front of me, saying, 'Come on, let's talk.'

And I'm keeping my right up high to protect myself and to hit."

The pose had a certain drama about it. But the noisy dispute over a site where American and North Vietnamese negotiators could meet for preliminary talks recalled what the late John Foster Dulles said in 1954 about negotiating with Asian Communists: "Progress is always slow and seldom spectacular."

A Matter of Propaganda. Initially, Johnson suggested Geneva. Without rejecting the Swiss city outright, Hanoi came back with Pnompenh. Johnson, in turn, pointed out that Cambodia's capital has serious communications shortcomings and that neither the U.S. nor South Viet Nam has an embassy there. Instead, he proposed four other Asian sites (Vientiane, Rangoon, Djakarta and New Delhi).

North Viet Nam's reply came through a most unorthodox channel: a Tass dispatch from Hanoi saying that Washington's reluctance to accept Pnompenh "cannot but cause wonder, because the U.S. has repeatedly expressed willingness to send its representatives to any point on the globe." Tass added that the North Vietnamese would nonetheless be willing to consider Warsaw as an alternative. Hours later, Hanoi confirmed its choice of the Polish capital in a formal note delivered to U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan in Vientiane, where there have been as many as nine exchanges between American and North Vietnamese diplomats since early April.

By now, Johnson had become annoyed by the North Vietnamese penchant for making proposals through the press rather than through diplomatic channels. At the President's orders, Under Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach called in Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and delivered a caustic protest over Tass's violation of diplomatic etiquette. At the White House Presidential Press Secretary George Christian said: "Those acting in good faith will not seek to make this a matter of propaganda."

Legitimate Objections. Nevertheless, Hanoi was clearly doing so--and seemed to be getting away with it. The U.S. had some legitimate objections to Pnompenh and had equally valid reservations about Warsaw, an ally of Hanoi and a supplier of its arms. "We have proposed only places where they have an embassy and no apparent difficulties," said a U.S. official. "If we played it their way, we would suggest Taipei." Moreover, the North Vietnamese--and the Russians--did their best to capitalize on Johnson's repeated statements that he would send U.S. representatives "anywhere, any time," to "any spot on this earth." Accusing the U.S. of a "stubborn and perfidious attitude," Hanoi at week's end rejected as "not convenient" all the sites suggested by Washington.

Sylvan Setting. During the diplomatic pas de deux by Washington and Hanoi, Johnson sought to emphasize that the U.S. had its right hand "up high." After conferring with Johnson in the sylvan setting of Camp David, Md., Defense Secretary Clark Clifford returned to the capital to announce that 24,500 Army, Air Force and Navy reservists and National Guardsmen were being called up.

At the same time, Clifford announced that the U.S. force level in South Viet Nam would increase within the next five months, from the presently authorized total of 525,000 men to 549,500. An effort would be made to maintain that ceiling, he emphasized, because of a U.S. policy decision "to turn over gradually the major effort to the South Vietnamese" (see following story).

No White Flags. There were signs that Johnson was wigwagging his open left hand as well as prominently displaying his clenched right fist. U.S. planes, having ranged as far as the 20th parallel after the President declared a partial bombing pause, last week went no farther north than the 19th parallel--a difference of nearly 70 miles. For its part, however, Hanoi offered no sign that it was prepared to make a reciprocal gesture.

This week Johnson was to fly to Honolulu for talks with South Korea's President Chung Hee Park, who has 52,000 troops in Viet Nam, and with top U.S. Pacific commanders. While the emphasis there is likely to be on the fighting, Johnson is well aware that his countrymen will be looking for some signs of progress on the diplomatic front.

Nonetheless, he remains far from euphoric about the likelihood of a quick breakthrough to negotiations, and he is properly reluctant to give Hanoi a tactical and propaganda advantage by permitting the talks to be held in a disadvantageous setting. The last time that happened, he recalls only too well, was in 1951, when preliminary talks on ending the Korean War were held behind Communist lines in the village of Kae-song. U.S. officials were forced to thread through a hostile crowd and display white flags when they went to the table. The chief American negotiator, Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy, was seated on a chair markedly lower than the one used by his North Korean counterpart, and thus was compelled to look up to his opposite number. This time Johnson is determined that there will be no white flags, no low chairs and no environment predictably inimical to either side.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.