JOHNSON IN HAWAII FOR TALKS ON S. VIETNAM

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30978, 7 February 1966, Page 13

JOHNSON IN HAWAII FOR TALKS ON S. VIETNAM

(N.Z. Press Association-Copyright) HONOLULU, Feb. 6. President Johnson arrived in Hawaii yesterday for a top-level three-day conference on the military and economic needs of South Vietnam. High administration sources said the most important topics would be the economic and social development of South Vietnam and a thorough review of the military situation there.

About 1000 people turned out to greet the President at Honolulu Airport. They included a dozen pickets carrying signs reading “Murderer go home,” “End the war n o w,” “The genocide must stop,” and “Stop killing now.” Police had to protect the anti-war demonstrators, who were threatened by an angry crowd.

It was the President's first trip from the American continent since he took office and will be his first meeting with the Prime Minister of South Vietnam, General Nguyen Cao Ky. With the President are the Secretary of Agriculture Mr Orval Freeman, and Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Mr John Gardner, as well as the Secretary of Defence, Mr Robert McNamara, and the Secretary of State, Mr Dean Rusk. FROM SAIGON The American and South Vietnamese delegations from Saigon will arrive today and formal meetings will begin tomorrow morning. The American delegation from Saigon will be led by the Ambassador, Mr Henry Cabot Lodge, and the com-

mander of American forces there. General William Westmoreland. President Johnson's purpose in bringing his own advisers in development fields is to

have them listen to the South Vietnamese officials describe their plans and to weigh what more the United States can do to assist, rather than to present specific new proposals of their own, Administration sources said.

It is widely believed that a major purpose of the trip is to bring greater recognition and prestige to General Ky’s Government, which is not generally regarded as having a strong grip on the loyalty or enthusiasm of the South Vietnamese people. Stronger emphasis on the economic and social development of South Vietnam might have several important results —political and military—in both countries.

Most observers believe that until strong efforts are made in this direction there is little hope of subduing the Viet

Cong military challenge, and much less of winning and keeping the political loyalties of the people. The Swiss Government has offered its good services to an international meeting on Vietnam and said it would welcome a peace conference in Switzerland, United Press International reported. But an authoritative Government source in Berne said: “We are not making the first move.” The source was commenting bn a report in a London newspaper that “diplomatic moves are being made to arrange a Vietnam peace conference in Switzerland at which President Johnson will represent the United States.”

In Washington both the White House and the State Department refused to comment on the report.