Palace-to-Palace Salesmanship

VICE PRESIDENT Spiro T. Agnew returns to San Clemente this week after a palace door-to-palace door selling trip for the Nixon Doctrine in Southeast Asia. If he had to file a salesman's report on his tour through the territory, it might read something like this: "They know they'll have to buy it eventually, but they'd just as soon hold off as long as possible. If they have to take it now, they'd like as many optional features as they can get free. Suggest hard-sell follow-up."

It seems certain that only future hard bargaining with the countries visited will demonstrate the effectiveness of Agnew's mission abroad, although its value to Agnew is automatic as quotable experience on the campaign hustings this fall. Generally the trip was business-like and low-keyed, with one unadvertised, dramatic stop in Cambodia. In one form or another, all the conversations were about implementing the essential elements of Administration policy: gradual U.S. military withdrawal from Southeast Asia but continuing U.S. aid to those nations that act to help themselves. A stop-by-stop review: SOUTH KOREA: Agnew arrived in a light drizzle to see President Chung Hee Park, whose natural inclinations toward hard bargaining and specific, written commitments were reinforced by domestic political needs: he faces an election in the spring. In his talks with Agnew, Park reportedly settled for a face-saving agreement: gradual U.S. withdrawal of all its forces from South Korea and U.S.-aided modernization of the ROK army would be treated in parallel, a semantic nicety that left U.S. plans and Park's domestic position intact. The nicety did not come easy. The meeting between the two men went on for six hours instead of the two scheduled, and Agnew is known to have had to consult the Western White House after it was over. He told newsmen traveling with him that even though "it might take five years or more." all G.I.s in South Korea would be withdrawn when ROK forces were modernized. TAIWAN: Agnew's visit to 82-year-old Chiang Kai-shek was the closest thing to a courtesy call on his itinerary. The U.S. has only a military advisory mission in Taipei, and Agnew himself summed up Chiang's request for more modern jet planes even before he arrived in Taiwan. "I would guess," he said of Chiang, "he would like to have anything he can get. I have never seen him refuse anything." SOUTH VIET NAM: From the moment he arrived at the presidential palace in Saigon until the moment of his departure, Agnew moved about under total security and in almost total public silence. Perhaps by design both Agnew and President Nguyen Van Thieu had chosen to speak out before his arrival. En route to Saigon, Agnew explicitly ruled out as a topic of conversation the timetable for American withdrawal from Viet Nam beyond that already announced by Nixon. Thieu made his opposite views known in an interview with TIME. "We need to know--not publicly of course --just how fast will be the redeployment to determine how we are going to cope," he said. "The thing is not to be kept in the dark. Nobody knows presently what is the plan."

A great deal is known, however, about the problems that the two nations face alone, jointly and with each other. Among them: South Viet Nam's worsening economic condition and what it means by its ability to "cope" as America withdraws; the current South Vietnamese election campaign (see WORLD); Thieu's insistence that, to ensure the peace, the U.S. keep a 60,000-man garrison in South Viet Nam even after Vietnamization is complete. CAMBODIA: Protected by U.S. helicopter gunships in the air and by Secret Service men on the ground, Agnew made an unannounced, though scheduled visit to a capital city less than ten miles away from the fighting. His 4-hr. 50-min. stopover in Phnom-Penh was explicity intended to demonstrate, both to the Lon Nol government and the Communists attacking it, that "we are not going to stand idly by in the sense of rendering economic and material assistance when free countries are invaded." Agnew repeated to newsmen what he said he had told the Cambodians: The U.S. will not become militarily involved in any way in Cambodia except to protect or support American troops in Viet Nam. THAILAND: In warless Bangkok, his last stop, Agnew for the first time was able to relax. Unencumbered by heavy security, he signed autographs for children at his hotel, attended a state dinner in the prescribed open-necked, shortsleeved sports shirt, and, beer in hand, chatted amiably with Thai Premier Thanom Kittika-chorn. But the casualness masked serious business. The Thais are concerned about the military and economic effects of American withdrawal: of the 45,000 Americans, mostly airmen, stationed there, 10,000 are to be pulled out by next year. The Thais, professing full agreement with the Nixon Doctrine, urged Agnew to get them the continued American aid they need for selfhelp; Agnew promised to carry the message home. To emphasize their problem, the Thais revealed a phased withdrawal of all of their 12,000 troops in Viet Nam.

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