Eleventh-Hour Frustrations

Obtaining a genuine peace in Indochina remains a Tantalus-like frustration, visible but just beyond reach. That was apparent last week as Henry Kissinger and North Viet Nam's Le Due Tho met again in Paris to seek a way of implementing last January's moribund peace agreement.

Kissinger landed at Orly Airport in a jovial mood, noting the "progress and cooperative spirit" that marked his talks with Tho before they recessed May 23. At a reception at Paris' George V Hotel, a perpetually smiling Tho assured guests that he was "optimistic." From Saigon came cheering reports that Vietnamese and Western officials saw the time as ripe for movement toward a real peace. Official photographers and television cameramen were admitted to the first session, which opened Wednesday morning at the Communist villa in Gifsur-Yvette, a Paris suburb. At previous talks, the presence of the cameras had meant that agreement was near.

Then came a thunderbolt from Saigon. A spokesman for South Viet Nam's President Nguyen Van Thieu declared that his government would not sign any political agreement worked out between only Kissinger and Tho. Acknowledging that Washington and Hanoi can strike whatever deals they please in matters concerning only them, such as possible U.S. aid for North Viet Nam, Saigon insisted that it be present at any sessions where decisions were made affecting South Viet Nam.

Kissinger and Tho were apparently unprepared for these new objections. In Saigon, acting U.S. Ambassador Charles Whitehouse conferred twice with South Vietnamese Foreign Minister Tran Van Lam. He also spent three hours closeted with Thieu at the Presidential Palace--one of the longest meetings since the ceasefire. Next morning, another government spokesman announced that the declaration of the previous day was "inaccurate."

Rather than being unalterably opposed to any new agreement, he said, Saigon would remain flexible and would not commit itself either way.

Quite clearly, Thieu was worried that Kissinger would make concessions to the North Vietnamese that Saigon has long opposed. Saigon, for example, fears that the U.S. will not pressure the North to withdraw its military forces from the South before national elections. Thieu refuses to accept these elections until the North Vietnamese army withdraws completely.

Hanoi, for its part, still does not admit that it has troops in the South, although they are indisputably there. The Communists worry that if their forces withdraw, Saigon's troops would invade Viet Cong areas, break up the V.C. cadres and arrest suspect Communist sympathizers--thus guaranteeing an election result favorable to Thieu.

Saigon also opposes any deal by Kissinger that would place a third, "uncommitted" party on the National Council for Reconciliation and Concord. Thieu insists that the council comprise only his government supporters and those of the Viet Cong's Provisional Revolutionary Government (P.R.G.).

Thieu's eleventh-hour intransigence has been rewarded in the past. He won concessions by refusing to go to the conference table in October 1968 and by balking at last October's original ceasefire terms. This time he hopes to gain reaffirmation by all parties to the agreement that any matter concerning the political sovereignty of the South Vietnamese people is to be decided by Saigon's present government and the P.R.G. Thieu's objections, together with problems brought up by the North Vietnamese, were enough, in any event, to stymie the expected agreement. Kissinger flew back to Washington over the weekend to finish preparations for the Nixon-Brezhnev summit, but planned to return to Paris early this week to try, once again, to stop the fighting.

Events in Indochina last week indicated the need to implement the ceasefire. Heavy fighting continued in Cambodia, much of it for control of Route 4, Phnom-Penh's link to its only deep-water seaport. As American jets flew support missions for Cambodian government troops, the U.S. lost its second pilot in two weeks. On South Viet Nam's northern border, Hanoi continued building its supply roads through the Demilitarized Zone into the northern provinces of South Viet Nam, in violation of the January agreement. Far to the south, week-long clashes in the Mekong Delta, according to Saigon, left 302 Communists dead, while ARVN suffered 46 dead and 152 wounded.

*With deputy U.S. Negotiator William Sullivan and Graham Martin, Ambassador-Designate to South Viet Nam.

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