DIPLOMACY: Bringing Pressure on Hanoi

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PRESIDENTIAL Adviser Henry Kissinger flew back to Washington at week's end from a four-day visit to Peking, his fourth in less than a year. His return brought to an end, for the moment at least, a flurry of activity by top-level American, Chinese and Soviet officials that appeared to be focused on Viet Nam.

The exact nature of Kissinger's talks with Chinese Premier Chou En-lai was not yet known. But clearly from the kind of treatment Kissinger received, the Chinese considered the visit highly important. Kissinger was installed in the state guest house at Jade Abyss Pool Park in Peking, and between meetings with Premier Chou Enlai, treated to a lavish banquet in the Great Hall of the People. The People's Daily prominently displayed a group photograph of Kissinger, Chou and their top aides.

Kissinger reported frequently to President Nixon, using special communications gear aboard the presidential 707 that had brought him to Peking. Kissinger discussed the Moscow summit with the Chinese, along with his own recent trip to Japan, and is said to have assured them that at neither meeting was any agreement made that interfered with China's national interests. Presumably he also discussed recent agreements between Moscow and Washington, including the SALT accord. But the principal subject of the talks—and the reason that had brought Kissinger to Peking—was Viet Nam and a U.S. request that the Chinese help Washington get the long-stalled peace talks going on a realistic new footing.

The Chinese were prepared to lend a hand within limits. Indeed, they are believed to have urged such negotiations when Le Due Tho, Hanoi's chief delegate to the Paris peace talks, visited Peking a few days earlier. The Chinese have made it clear in private that they disapprove of Hanoi's current offensive—and of the conventional-type warfare that the North Vietnamese have been waging with Soviet weaponry. Thus they have recently provided only military aid to Hanoi and have closed their harbors to Soviet ships bearing supplies for North Viet Nam.

Mission of Persuasion. Nonetheless, Chou recently declared that China must not repeat the "mistakes" of the 1954 Geneva Conference, which partitioned Viet Nam—meaning that Peking will not directly pressure Hanoi into an agreement. Presumably out of respect for North Vietnamese feelings, the People's Daily published an anti-U.S. editorial on the eve of Kissinger's visit.