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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 "communiqué" 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...
...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 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...
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...
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...