Pacific Mission

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Because Lyndon Johnson has argued more persuasively than any of his predecessors that the U.S. is a Pacific as well as an Atlantic power, it seems appropriate that his 17-day, six-nation tour of Asia will be the most extensive ever undertaken by an American President. Departing next week, Johnson will cover 25,000 miles, enough to girdle the globe, with stops in New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea. Though he said last week that "no consideration has been given" to a Viet Nam visit, he will probably make a quick side trip to a secure U.S. air base, such as Danang, and to an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin.

The focal point of the tour is the Oct. 24-25 Manila meeting that will bring together Johnson and six Asian heads of government for talks on the Viet Nam war. The objective, the President told his news conference last week, is to "give an opportunity for the leaders of the men who are committed to battle in Viet Nam to meet and explore ways of finding peace, and for bringing an end to the conflict and for making that area of the world prosperous and peaceful in the years to come."

Whizzing Bulletins. Considering the difficulties involved in getting seven heads of government to the same place at the same time, it is a near miracle that the conference is coming off at all. The date was revised three times so that it would not interfere with elections in Australia and New Zealand or South Viet Nam's Nov. 1 National Day.

Once the date was set, formidable logistical problems had to be coped with. To house the conferees, the Phil ippine government planned to commandeer the gracious old Manila Hotel, flanking the bay--though Johnson and some of the other government chiefs may stay at their embassies. Caring for the 1,000 newsmen expected to descend on Manila is an even more complicated matter, as Washington belatedly realized when it came to the task of ac commodating the 200 journalists who will cover Johnson's entire tour. Hastily the White House sent summonses for help to two former White House press secretaries--James Hagerty, who helped arrange Ike's 1959 visit to Asia, and Pierre Salinger, who helped plan John F. Kennedy's two European jaunts. At the same time, White House Press Secretary Bill Moyers left two weeks early to make advance arrangements.

Not the least of the headaches con fronting officials in Manila is the pothole problem. Even the city's biggest thoroughfares are pocked with holes that resemble shell craters, and Filipino cartoonists are having a field day depicting delegates stranded in the concrete cavities while bulletins whiz over their heads. President Ferdinand Mar cos has made $190,000 available for a quick cosmetic job on the major arteries.

Whose Bovs? Even so, Lyndon Johnson could still find himself in a deep political hole as a result of the conference, which grew out of proposals from the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and South Viet Nam. No sooner was the meeting announced than it came under a withering crossfire of criticism. Moscow Radio dismissed it as "a propaganda stunt," the G.O.P. as a political gimmick. In one of his less becoming sneers, Senator William Fulbright dubbed it a meaningless palaver among "a cozy little group of our boys."

It is hardly likely to be all that cozy. While Johnson hopes to emphasize pacification and the pursuit of peace, the other delegates, who are by no means Washington's "boys," are more interested in reviewing the military situation. If the President does any arm twisting of his Asian allies in Manila, it is less likely to be for heavier military commitments in Viet Nam than for a more positive approach to peace feelers.

South Korea's General Chung Hee Park, for example, who has sent 41,000 troops to Viet Nam, is expected to take a hard line, emphasizing the pitfalls of negotiations rather than their potential profits. South Viet Nam's Premier Nguyen Cao Ky is likely to do the same. The Thais, worried that an inconclusive settlement in Viet Nam would only prompt the Reds to shift their murderous attention to Thailand's northeast, get nervous when so much as a bombing pause is mentioned. As for the Filipinos, who have committed 2,000 men to Viet Nam and face a newly resurgent Huk guerrilla movement at home, they are vigorously opposed to the notion of admitting the Viet Cong to a coalition government in Saigon.

Unclogged Channels. Johnson is getting it from the other side as well. During the week, pressure for a fresh attempt at launching peace negotiations came from Pope Paul VI, British Foreign Secretary George Brown and United Nations Secretary-General U Thant, among others. The President, who conferred with Thant for 50 minutes in New York, declared once again that he was willing to explore any promising avenue to peace.

As U.S. officials see it, the most promising route of all may be the one that leads from Moscow to Hanoi, and the Administration last week was making extraordinary efforts to unclog the U.S.-Soviet arteries. For one thing, the President named Llewellyn Thompson, who was ambassador to Moscow from 1957 to 1962 and is uniquely inured to Soviet psychology during periods of thaw and freeze alike, to succeed Foy Kohler in the Russian capital. For another, Johnson approved the reopening of talks, suspended since the 1961 Berlin crisis, on nonstop air service between New York and Moscow.

Most dramatically, the President proposed in an eloquent New York speech that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies and the Soviet Union reduce their forces in Europe so as to "help gradually to shape an entire new political environment." At the same time, he announced that the U.S. was taking steps to ease controls on "hundreds of nonstrategic items" in order to stimulate East-West trade and "help us to build bridges to Eastern Europe."

Despite these moves, the Russians, who are sensitive to Peking's hysterical cries that they are collaborating with the imperialists, have responded with extreme caution. Not only have they refused officially to mediate with Hanoi; last week they also announced a new economic-and military-aid agreement with North Viet Nam. Said Ambassador Kohler, who spent "many hours" in Moscow trying to get the Soviets to help end the Viet Nam war: "I'm sorry to say I do not see any such role for them. They say they have no authorization to act. Until they see a change in Hanoi, there's little possibility they will."

Autumn Leaves. Hanoi certainly showed precious little evidence of change. Though the U.S. ordered a pause in bombing raids in a section of the demilitarized zone near the 17th parallel, Hanoi did not reciprocate. The U.S. has also offered to initiate an over all bombing pause in return for assurance from the North of a comparable deescalation, but Hanoi's response has been to insist on a total and permanent halt of all U.S. bombing before it will even talk about holding talks.

Thus, while peace proposals swirled about world capitals like autumn leaves, most came fluttering forlornly to earth. When a newsman asked the President last week whether there was any sign that an end to the war may be closer, Johnson replied: "I cannot, in frankness, be encouraging."

Clearly, though, Lyndon Johnson has learned that delicate diplomatic maneuverings can only be endangered by extravagant window dressing. He waged last winter's peace offensive, as Columnist Max Lerner noted, "as if he wanted his Texas yell to be heard over the rooftops of the world." Now, despite the spectacular advance billing for the Manila conference, the Administration's dealings with the Communist world and America's emerging allies in Asia are being conducted in sober, muted tones.

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