No Carrot, No Stick

SMILING broadly as he deplaned at Paris' Orly Airport, Presidential Adviser Henry Kissinger effusively praised North Vietnamese Politburo Member Le Due Tho as "my old friend in the search for peace." Later, when the two met at the U.S.-owned villa outside Paris, there were more smiles and handshakes. With this ceremonial display of affection, the talks on the future of Viet Nam were reconvened last week. At stake, once again, was peace in Indochina; Kissinger and Tho, it was hoped, would figure out ways to stop the continued fighting that threatens to undo the cease-fire agreement they negotiated last winter. But when Kissinger emerged from the first of several expected meetings with Tho, his only comment on the progress of the talks was a noncommittal "okay." Everything, clearly, was not okay.

In the five-hour closed session, both sides repeated old and familiar arguments: the U.S. insisted that the North Vietnamese were violating the peace accords by infiltration into the South; North Viet Nam pointed out that U.S. planes were continuing to bomb in Cambodia and claimed that bombing was taking place in South Viet Nam as well. Bombs were indeed falling in Cambodia, particularly around the Mekong River, which is a vital lifeline to Phnom-Penh. The Viet Cong, meanwhile, charged that some of their positions in South Viet Nam had been bombed by U.S. aircraft and demanded that the International Commission of Control and Supervision investigate.

American charges that the Communists are violating the peace accord are based on increasing evidence of massive infiltration of men and supplies into

South Viet Nam. Some U.S. intelligence experts believe that the North Vietnamese are trying to annex northern provinces in South Viet Nam where Communist troops were allowed to remain "in place" as part of the cease-fire agreement. According to some reports, about 6,000 civilian administrators have been moved down from the North to set up a government in the region.

Firm Order. Even before the start of his talks with Le Due Tho, Kissinger's bargaining position had been threatened by a strong show of congressional opposition to any further bombing of Laos and Cambodia. First the House of Representatives, which had never before approved a measure aimed at ending or reducing U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, voted 219-188 to block a requested transfer in the Supplemental Appropriations Bill of already allotted funds from other Defense Department programs to pay for the bombing. Last week the normally conservative and hawkish Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved an amendment to the same bill that goes even further by prohibiting the use of any appropriations whatsoever for the bombing.

It seems certain that the committee amendment will eventually be passed by the entire Senate. Almost as surely, both houses will eventually agree on a compromise version that will present President Nixon with a firm order from Congress to stop the fighting once and for all. Significantly, even hitherto loyal supporters of the President's war policy joined in the Senate committee vote. Rumbled New Hampshire Republican Norris Cotton: "As far as I am concerned, I want to get the hell out."

Despite the wishes of Congress, the Administration has said that it has no intention of stopping the barrage of bombs. This view seems shaky, since it has been argued in Congress, and elsewhere, that there is no legal justification for the continued bombing in Cambodia in the first place. The Administration initially insisted that even if Congress refused to vote more funds for bombing, the Government would get money from past appropriated funds. But under mounting congressional pressure, Defense Secretary Elliot Richardson, who is also Acting Attorney General, conceded that if both houses voted to withhold funds, then the Administration would respect the curb.

Thanks largely to some skillful parliamentary maneuvering by Republican Senators, any vote by the Senate on an anti-bombing measure has been postponed until after Memorial Day. Thus Kissinger was spared the embarrassment of trying to talk tough from a substantially weakened position. His options in pressuring Tho to adhere to the peace accords, however, could soon be severely limited. As a diplomat in Paris observed last week, "Kissinger could use the carrot-and-stick technique--alternating the threat of more bombing with the prospect of American economic aid for the reconstruction of North Viet Nam. But now it looks as though Congress may withhold the carrot and take away the stick."

If it does, Kissinger's task will be more difficult than ever. Hanoi is certainly aware of his predicament. As a result, it might be tempted to increase military pressure in Indochina. Whether the Soviet Union and China would try to restrain Hanoi depends on how Moscow and Peking assess Nixon's strength and authority in light of Watergate, and the President's ability to deliver the trade and technical benefits they would like, along with the political balance both sides desire.

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