Envoy ‘Could Help Clarify Offer’

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30955, 11 January 1966, Page 14

Envoy ‘Could Help Clarify Offer’

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, January 10. A visit by the United States envoy. Mr Averill Harriman, would give the Prime Minister, Mr Holyoake, the opportunity of clarifying the Vietnam peace offer, the chairman of the Wellington Committee on Vietnam (Mr B. Mitcalfe) said yesterday.

Mr Harriman may visit Wellington after his talks 1 i Canberra this week. “Several contradictory state meats have been made by Presidential sources on term.' of the peace offer,” Mr Mit calfe said. “The first statement, on December 29. seemed to offei every hope of peace in that il suggested a return to the Geneva Agreements, with the holding of nationa'l election.' and the reunification and de I militarisation of a Vietnair [free from all foreign en jtanglemenls. [ “But since that statement i neither corrected nor confirm led, both Mr Goldberg (Unitec States Ambassador to th<

|United Nations) and Mr Harriman have stated that the i United States would maintain jan ‘independent and five i South Vietnam.’ j “As such ‘independence’ and ‘freedom’ can apparently be maintained only through a military dictatorship and United States occupation, it seems the first statement must be totally in error. “Many people in New Zealand would like clarification of the contradictions in the terms offered by the United (States as offers of peace on i impossible terms have been lan excuse in the past for J escalating the conflict,” Mr 'Mitcalfe said.