CENTRAL AREA

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30979, 8 February 1966, Page 17

CENTRAL AREA

Rain Stops Campaign

GV.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) SAIGON, Feb. 7. Rain and “pea soup” clouds closed in on the Central Vietnam coast today and bogged down the biggest American campaign of the war, United Press International reported. The weather held up an attempt by Marines afid the United States Ist Cavalry to close in on thousands of Communists believed trapped between the jaws of a “vice.” United States planes and helicopters were grounded. It was feared the Communists might be able to slip out of the trap toward impenetrable mountains farther west and escape a ring of artillery, including big 155 mm. howitzers around the Viet Cong position, 315 miles north-east of Saigon.

Thant’s Moves (N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) NEW YORK, February 7. The United Nations Secre-tary-General, U Thant, was reported yesterday to be working for a peace conference on Vietnam that would include the Viet Cong, the associated press reported. U Thant was reported to have in mind a conference of eight parties Britain, France, the Soviet Union, China, the United States, North and South Vietnam, and the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front, the political arm of the Viet Cong. The United States has refused to recognise the front.