Diplomacy: New Moves & Old Intransigence

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French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville sat deep in thought, his wavy white head bowed over the text of the speech he was about to deliver to the United Nations General Assembly. Behind him, Russian U.N. Representative Nikolai Fedorenko and his French opposite number, Roger Sey-doux, were engaged in eager conversation. As Couve read on, the two men behind him suddenly smiled and raised their hands—thumb to forefinger—in the universal gesture of happy agreement. Then Couve rose to demand that the U.S. make a "new move" to end the war in Viet Nam.

Instantly, dove hearts fluttered and dove tongues stuttered with the awesome implications: Russia and France were ready to cooperate and bring about a negotiated peace in Southeast Asia. . . the machinery is in motion. . . if only Washington would. . .

Would what? The little scene between Seydoux and Fedorenko had nothing to do with Viet Nam (they were agreeing on the wording of a draft communique about U Thant and the Secretary-General post). Couve's 30-minute speech proved to be nothing more than a restatement of Charles de Gaulle's demand in Pnompenh a month ago for American withdrawal. And as for a "new move," U.S. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg a week earlier had offered to make one—cessation of American bombing in return for North Vietnamese withdrawal from the South.

"Peace Plot." There were no signs that Hanoi was willing to respond, though a faint stir was caused by the Hanoi broadcast of an interview with South Viet Nam's National Liberation Front Leader Nguyen Huu Tho, "civilian" boss of the Viet Cong. Talking to Australian Journalist Wilfred Burchett, Tho said that the N.L.F. "must have its decisive place and voice in any political solution" of the war. Was Tho's wording one of those ephemeral "signals" that Washington is forever waiting for? Not likely, for the Tho-Burchett interview took place on Aug. 25, had been broadcast two weeks earlier by the Viet Cong radio, and was immediately followed last week by a rabid knockdown of the Goldberg offer by Hanoi, which called it "a peace plot."

Still Couve and his U.N. allies were speaking for a broad cross section of world opinion when they demanded a quick political solution to the war. The Ivory Coast's Arsene Usher asked that the U.S. make "a lofty gesture by ending the bombings," and even Assembly President Abdul Rahman Pazhwak of Afghanistan argued that only a nation as powerful as the U.S. could afford to lose face in the interests of peace. Yet why should the U.S. be the only party in the war to make concessions? Foreign Minister Joseph M.A.H. Luns of The Netherlands had the bitter answer: "It is a well-established practice of totalitarian regimes that they declare themselves prepared for negotiations provided that the other side concedes in advance the main point at stake."