THE SECOND PHASE IN PARIS

RICHARD NIXON'S top priority will, of course, be Viet Nam--at least in the foreseeable future. Though he could only welcome Saigon's agreement last week to attend the Paris talks, hardly anyone in Washington believes that any substantive moves toward peace will be made before the next President takes office. At best, the negotiators in Paris may have settled what they call the "modalities": such inconsequential but emotion-charged issues as seating arrangements, speaking order, briefing rules, and myriad other details.

Saigon's announcement that it would send a delegation to Paris came nearly four weeks after Lyndon Johnson announced that he was extending his limited bombing halt to cover all of North Viet Nam. U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker waited a week for South Viet namese tempers to cool--and for the American elections to end. Then he went to work to persuade President Nguyen Van Thieu to agree to send a delegation to Paris. So strained were the sessions that Deputy U.S. Ambassador Samuel Berger, who had been particularly unreceptive to Saigon's demands during earlier talks, had to be packed off to Hawaii. Thieu, under pressure from hard-liners within his own government, wanted guarantees that there would be no recognition in Paris of the Viet Cong and no attempt to impose a coalition regime on Saigon. A break in the impasse finally came on Nov. 9, during a 90-minute meeting at which Bunker suggested that a U.S. statement be prepared offering assurances to Thieu. In the ensuing 2 1/2 weeks, the U.S. statement went through seven drafts before it satisfied Thieu. The final 750-word statement offered explicit assurances to Saigon that Washington: > Does not recognize the National Liberation Front, the Viet Cong's political agency, even though the N.L.F. will attend the talks. "We will regard all the persons on the other side of the table as members of a single side, that of Hanoi," said the statement.

> Will not give in to Hanoi's demands for enforced Viet Cong representation in any government of South Viet Nam. "The U.S.," said the statement, "will not recognize any government that is not freely chosen through democratic and legal process by the people of South

Viet Nam. The imposition of any coalition government would be in conflict with this principle."

> Expects Saigon to "take the lead and be the main spokesman on all matters which are of principal concern to South Viet Nam." In such matters of "hard ware" as troop withdrawals and a ceasefire, the U.S. will continue to speak for the allies.

Washington anticipates trouble from Hanoi, particularly over nonrecognition of the N.F.L. But as one official put it, the U.S. does not expect the North Vietnamese to press the matter to the point of "diplomatic divorce."

Victory of Sorts. The tough negotiations cost Thieu considerable sleep and, according to his wife, "one or two notches" in his belt. But he won a personal victory of sorts. In part, Thieu's delay was a face-saving gesture. But in forcing some concessions from the U.S., he enhanced the credibility of his government as an independent entity rather than the "puppet" regime that the Communists are so fond of belaboring. Finally, Thieu strengthened his domestic position, and averted a rebellion among the hardliners, who are fearful of a sellout in Paris.

Thieu quickly began assembling a 100-man team to attend the talks, announced that Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, while not actually heading the delegation, would be "supervising, controlling, directing, going between Saigon and Paris to receive instructions." Ky will also bring his lissome wife Mai to Paris as Saigon's answer to the Viet Cong's attractive Madame Nguyen Thi Binh (see THE WORLD).

Two Sides or Four. Once the South Vietnamese delegation arrives, it could be months before the procedural wrangles are settled. No sooner had Saigon said that it would attend the talks than Hanoi replied: "We will not talk to [South Viet Nam] on any matter." Absurd as it may sound, all parties are still embroiled in a dispute about whether the conference is two-sided or four-sided. Both Hanoi and the N.L.F. delegation in Paris insist that the talks amount to a four-way conference and that the presence of the Saigon delegation "does not signify any kind of recognition." Saigon similarly says that it does not recognize the N.L.F. as anything but a part of the Hanoi delegation.

Yet to be determined are a conference site (probably a bigger room in the old Hotel Majestic at 19 Avenue Kle-ber), how many doors will lead to the main hall (when the talks began in May, Hanoi insisted on two doors so that it would be on an equal footing with the U.S.), even the shape of the conference table. Hanoi and the N.L.F. are likely to insist on a four-sided table that will put each delegation in the conference room on an equal footing. Saigon and the U.S. are likely to reject such an arrangement on the ground that it would give tacit recognition to the Viet Cong. Possible solutions: a round table, or a square one set up in the shape of a diamond, enabling one side to assemble along the upper half and the other along the lower half. Said one U.S. official: "We may put the French furniture industry to a real test before we're through."

Seven-Week Stall. Once the modalities are arranged, the negotiators will enter an even thicker diplomatic jungle. General Creighton Abrams, the U.S. commander in Viet Nam, expects Hanoi to start right off with a demand for a cease-fire in place--a move opposed by most policymakers in Washington and Saigon because it would leave the Viet Cong in control of too much territory. Others foresee serious talks on a mutual troop withdrawal.

In any case, both the Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese are expected to stall for weeks, and possibly months. The guerrillas are frantically at work in thousands of South Vietnamese hamlets, hoping to weld them firmly to the Viet Cong infrastructure by the time a cease-fire is proclaimed. Saigon, on the other hand, fears that President Johnson may be so determined to achieve peace during the seven weeks before he leaves office that he will accept even an unfavorable settlement. Even after Jan. 20, speedy progress is unlikely. Some observers see a go-round lasting 15 to 18 months, with considerable maneuvering that may appear as quibbling to the U.S. but will represent the essence to the Vietnamese.

Fourfold Increase. Meantime the war continues--and last week seemed to be intensifying. Allied troops clashed with the Communists in the Demilitarized Zone and, in the bitterest fighting since mid-September, along the Cambodian border some 50 miles northwest of Saigon. U.S. reconnaissance planes, two of which were shot down last week, reported that truck movements in the panhandle, just north of the DMZ, are up fourfold; some of the trucks have been fitted with railroad wheels to substitute for scarce locomotives. The Pentagon was unsure whether all the movement meant that Hanoi was merely repairing the blasted area or whether it was mounting a new military offensive--as suggested by the Viet Cong orders to its troops to "utterly destroy" allied military and pacification units.

In any event, as Lyndon Johnson warned last week, "We must expect both hard bargaining and hard fighting in the days ahead." The really hard bargaining has yet to begin. The hard fighting has never stopped.

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