The War: Tuning In on All Channels

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If waging a war in Asia has been a frustrating exercise for Americans, trying to end it has proved almost as stultifying. Through dozens of channels last week, the Administration was exploring Hanoi's recent statement that a halt in U.S. bombing of North Viet Nam "will" result in peace talks. But nobody could determine for certain whether the Communists were interested in launching negotiations that could end the war or in scoring a propaganda coup. "We could be on the threshold of something big," said one U.S. official, "but as of now it looks more like a cheap political ploy to get the bombing turned off for nothing."

Nonetheless, the U.S. kept probing for the answer, and its efforts resulted in a week of considerable motion but little evident movement. There were rumors that serious talks on Viet Nam were under way in Moscow, and the fact that Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin hurried home after two lengthy talks with Secretary of State Dean Rusk seemed to lend credence to them (though the Russians insisted that Dobrynin had gone home to see his ailing father-in-law). In Warsaw, U.S. Ambassador to Poland John Gronouski met with Chinese diplomats for the first time in seven months, but no news was permitted to filter from behind the closed doors. In Hanoi, Cambodia's Foreign Minister Prince Norodom Phourissara held talks with high North Vietnamese officials.

The most closely watched mission was the five-day sojourn in Cambodia by U.S. Ambassador to India Chester Bowles. It was also the most surrealistic. Chief of State Prince Norodom Sihanouk, worried that the Viet Nam war might spread into his country, asked the U.S. to send an emissary. Then, on the eve of Bowles's arrival, he executed one of his more spectacular volte-faces by declaring that the ambassador would be better off visiting the ruins of Angkor Wat than talking to him.

Bottoms & Boots. In a rambling press conference, Sihanouk made the elaborate claim that the U.S. had vainly attempted to soft-soap him last November by sending Jacqueline Kennedy over on a sub rosa diplomatic mission. "Chester Bowles is going to try to succeed where Mrs. Kennedy failed," Sihanouk declared. "But Chester Bowles, no matter how he smiles, does not have and never will have the seductive effect of Mrs. Kennedy. He will go home empty-handed." For good measure, Sihanouk added: "I do not want to lose my dignity, I do not want to lick the bottom and boots of Mr. Johnson."

Diplomats are accustomed to hearing such pronouncements from Sihanouk; just two months ago, for example, he similarly declared that he had no intention of kowtowing to Peking because "the more you lick China's boots, the more she scorns you." Undeterred by his host's verbiage, Bowles arrived on schedule, spent two long sessions with the unpredictable prince amid the tropical splendor of his Chamcar Mon Palace in Pnompenh.