Pursuing Peace by Communiqu

Presidential Adviser Henry Kissinger and North Viet Nam's Le Due Tho have spent more than 45 hours parleying in Paris during the past month, trying to salvage last January's Indochina cease-fire agreement. The product of their labors did not quite seem commensurate with the effort. Last week they produced a "communique" that even the Viet Cong's Provisional Revolutionary Government (P.R.G.) and the usually recalcitrant government of South Viet Nam could affix their names to at a stiff ceremony inside Paris' International Conference Center.

Stripped of its diplomatic jargon, the 14-point, 2,500-word document merely directed all parties to work harder to make the January agreement succeed. To emphasize this, the negotiators liberally sprinkled the communique with such earnest phrases as "strictly observe," "scrupulously implement" and "without delay."

The communique called for a complete cease-fire last Friday, a ban on the infiltration of all new troops and materiel except replacements for those lost by attrition, a repatriation of all captured military and civilian personnel, a return of both Vietnamese forces to positions they occupied in January, and a renewed effort to determine the fate of men missing in action. For its part, the U.S. agreed to end all aerial reconnaissance over North Viet Nam, to resume minesweeping operations in North Vietnamese waters, and to pursue the talks for economic aid to Hanoi.

Lacked Teeth. Under the terms of the January ceasefire, virtually all these conditions should have been fulfilled by now. That they have not more or less confirms the criticism that the January agreement lacked teeth from the start. Yet the communique provides no new enforcement mechanism.

Most of the slight modifications of the January accords reflected in the communique resulted from the obstructionist tactics of South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu and the demands of the P.R.G. (TIME, June 18). Thieu was able to prevent the communique from describing the areas under Communist control in terms that could imply a permanent secession from South Viet Nam. The Communists gained a few points also. The communique ignored Thieu's insistence that national elections be held early and that the estimated 145,000 North Vietnamese troops withdraw from the South.

There is one fairly devastating measure of what the talks apparently did not accomplish. The communique disposes of Cambodia in one sentence, stating merely that "Article 20 of the [January] agreement regarding Cambodia and Laos shall be scrupulously implemented." Yet fierce fighting still rages along the access routes to Phnom-Penh, as U.S. warplanes continue flying combat missions. Kissinger implied that he has a tacit understanding with Tho that could bring peace to Cambodia and Laos (where fighting has stopped but no progress toward a political settlement has been made). Tho has denied that there is any understanding, secret or otherwise.

Kissinger also found little understanding when he personally begged congressional leaders not to cut off funds for U.S. bombing in Cambodia until he concluded his negotiations. Five hours later, the Senate responded by voting 67-15 to enact the most sweeping fund cutoff in the history of the Indochina war. If the House-Senate conference committee concurs, the bill will end all past, present and future appropriations for U.S. combat on the ground, in the air and upon the waters anywhere in Indochina without prior approval of Congress.

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