INDOCHINA: Second Attempt at a Truce

Viet Nam peace negotiations have by now acquired a certain déjá vu quality. Presidential Adviser Henry Kissinger and North Viet Nam's Le Due Tho confer in Paris and make a tentative deal.

Then Kissinger, or an aide, flies off to Saigon to win the concurrence of South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, who raises some objections. The two principal negotiators go back to Paris to resolve the difficulties. That is the point at which Kissinger will find himself this week when he once again meets Those in an attempt to resuscitate the faltering Viet Nam truce.

In Washington last week, Kissinger stressed that this supposedly final round of talks "concerns almost entirely methods of implementation rather than renegotiation." The discussions were necessary, he went on, because of a lack of "willingness to observe provisions that are clearly understood"—apparently a reference to Saigon as well as Hanoi.

Translated into plain English, Kissinger's statement amounted to an unhappy admission that fighting has continued in the four months since the truce agreement was signed. In spite of their questionable accuracy, figures released last week by Saigon reflect the level of violence: 21,455 Communist and 5,510 South Vietnamese soldiers killed, at least 3,530 civilians dead or wounded.

Neither Side. To be sure, there have been some notable changes since January. American G.I.s have gone home, prisoners have been exchanged, and Viet Cong officers—escorted always by South Vietnamese security troops—drive around Saigon. There is also the ineffectual presence of the four-nation International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS), created to monitor the adherence of both sides to the truce. The Hungarian and Polish commission members, who consider themselves Hanoi's representatives, have employed dilatory and obstructionist tactics to prevent the Canadian and Indonesian members from investigating reported truce violations. Last week External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp announced that Canada would quit the paralyzed, dissension-torn ICCS at the end of July. A high-ranking Canadian official privately explained that his government was tired of trying "to supervise a peace that is kept by neither side."

The decision by Ottawa was a distinct disappointment to Washington, which had urged the Canadians to stay on, arguing that in another month or so many of the frustrating problems of the ICCS might be resolved. Convinced that Canada's decision is final, the State Department has sounded out Brazil and Mexico as possible replacements.