TWO-PRONGED CAMPAIGN IN VIETN AM

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30980, 9 February 1966, Page 13

TWO-PRONGED CAMPAIGN IN VIETN AM

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) HONOLULU, Feb. 8. President Johnson and the South Vietnamese Prime Minister, Nguyen Cao Ky, agreed quickly on a twopronged approach to the Vietnam war, when their conference opened yesterday.

It is (1) to continue to prosecute the war and (2) to begin a vigorous new effort to improve the lot of the South Vietnamese people economically and politically. The opening session of the two-day conference went smoothly. Any difference of approach to the question of negotiations was muted. Both

leaders approved of a continuing search for peace. Nevertheless, General Ky—who occupied the role of chief South Vietnamese spokesman even in the presence of the chief of state, Lieutenant-General Nguyen

Van Thieu—heavily underlined tlie fact that negotiations must only be from a position of strength. The military side of the war is playing a secondary part in this conference. The emphasis is on the plans for what General Ky called “the war for the hearts of the people.” Cabinet officers and top technical officials on both sides split up into working groups later today to get down to what President Johnson described as the "nuts

and bolts” of development and aid plans. General Ky emphasised at the plenary conference that the South Vietnamese Government had realised it could not wait for the end of the war to institute reforms—the task had to be undertaken now, he said. Although military matters were left largely untouched in the more formal confer-

ence meetings, there have been a number of sessions on the side, mostly between the United States Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara, and General William Westmoreland and Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp, the United States commanders in Vietnam and the Pacific. Numbers Withheld United States officials, while declining to give the number of American troops eventually to be committed in Vietnam, acknowledges that General Westmoreland would be assured of whatever reinforcements he requested. The officials emphasised that bombing of North Vietnam was secondary and that the Communists had to be defeated on the ground in the south. The pacification programmes which South Vietnam now has envisaged depend in the first place on clearing areas of Viet Cong and holding them. There is doubt among observers that South Vietnam has enough manpower to hold the areas effectively once they have been secured and still press on with advances into other sectors. In these circumstances, the commitment of still more American troops is considered inevitable.