Nation: FIGHTING WHILE TALKING

FOR all the talk and hope of peace, the battlefields of South Viet Nam last week commanded equal news time with the leafy boulevards of Paris. Just as the long-awaited negotiations on the war in Viet Nam were getting under way, U.S. headquarters in Saigon announced that American casualties during the previous week were the highest yet: 562 killed in action. At the same time, the Communists launched their latest bloody round of countrywide attacks in South Viet Nam (see THE WORLD). Often suicidal, almost invariably foiled, the attacks nonetheless offered proof that Ho Chi Minh was determined and able to go on fighting while talking. It meant that, as in Korea, many more men would have to face the particularly bitter fate of dying while excruciatingly slow negotiations are trying to find an end to war.

Double Strategy. In Washington's view, Hanoi's negotiators at the Paris parley are conducting a double strategy, seeking to sow dissension between the U.S. and its nervous Saigon ally and simultaneously to gain a respite from U.S. bombing. During the first week of talks, the North Vietnamese seemed to make some headway with that strategy.

No U.S. bombers roamed above North Viet Nam's 19th parallel, and even south of that line there was a slight decrease in the number of raids. In its effort to intensify the strains be tween the U.S. and South Viet Nam, Hanoi had unexpected help. In a carelessly phrased comment during an appearance in Maine, Hubert Humphrey said that the conferees had "now" agreed to admit representatives of the Viet Cong and the Saigon regime to the negotiations. At some point, that is going to happen, if the talks are to continue; but it has not happened yet, and Humphrey's gaffe sent tremors through Saigon.

Still Fragile. Earlier Washington Post Reporter Chalmers Roberts reported from the Capital that "the U.S. is now prepared to accept a role for the Communists in the political life of South Viet Nam," no matter how the incumbent government feels about it. Secretary of State Dean Rusk immediately denied that the U.S. intended to "impose" a Communist regime on the South. The effect of the story, added the Secretary, would almost surely be to persuade the Communists that "their propaganda can divide the U.S. and its allies."

To be sure, the U.S. has no intention of forcing upon the still fragile South Vietnamese government a coalition that, by including Communists, might well swallow it. Nonetheless, any settlement that emerges from the Paris talks will ultimately have to reflect the harsh reality of the battlefield, and that reality may be the one that now prevails: a standoff. The U.S. cannot expect to get the kind of settlement it would if the enemy had been routed or were in any immediate danger of defeat. Thus, in all likelihood, some provision will eventually have to be made to give the Communists representation in a Saigon government, presumably through elections. The sticking point, of course, is how to include them without condemning the South to an inevitable Communist takeover.