A HARSH BEGINNING IN PARIS

ALL week long, Henry Cabot Lodge, the new U.S. chief negotiator for the Paris peace talks, had been working late into the night, briefing himself, staying close to the scrambler telephone that links the Paris Embassy to Washington. How did he feel about the prospects for settlement of the Viet Nam war? "I am the most hopeful man you have ever known in your life," he told newsmen. Lodge, as the first formal session quickly demonstrated, will probably need all the optimism he can muster in the months ahead. While the meeting began on a cool and correct note, it quickly became apparent that the Communists would be just as tough and unyielding as the most pessimistic predictions had envisaged.

In order to accommodate the 60-odd participants, the French hosts had moved the meeting into the Grande Salle des Fetes of the old Hotel Majestic on Avenue Kleber, which now serves as Paris' International Conference Center. The Grande Salle is 70 feet long, decorated with rich Gobelin tapestries showing Diana the Huntress, and dominated by three huge crystal chandeliers. The delegates assembled around a 26-foot-diameter table, almost double the size of the one used in an earlier procedural conference. The U.S. and the South Vietnamese, each placing eight representatives at the rim, sat as one delegation, in line with their claim for a two-sided conference. The Communists left a noticeable gap between Hanoi's group of eight and the National Liberation Front's seven delegates to make their point for a four-sided gathering. There were no handshakes, no formal greetings, with the exception of a slight bow from Xuan Thuy toward the U.S. delegation. Deputy U.S. Negotiator Cyrus Vance returned the gesture; Lodge merely nodded acknowledgment.

There had been earlier agreement on having no agenda so that the delegates would be free to tackle any topic they chose. The U.S. welcomed the arrangement because it bought some time for the new Administration in Washington to map its negotiating strategy.

Vitriolic Denunciation. The Communists chose the political aspect of the struggle as their subject for the opening session, framing their points in tough and seemingly inflexible language. Speaking first, Tran Buu Kiem, chief delegate for the National Liberation Front and also its shadow foreign minister, demanded the creation of a "peace cabinet" in Saigon that would treat the Front as an equal. He then launched into a vitriolic denunciation of the U.S. for its "barbarous and monstrous crimes" and of the Saigon regime, those "ferocious and bloodthirsty puppets." Kiem's colleague from Hanoi, Xuan Thuy, was considerably more restrained but also insisted that the conflict be settled on Communist terms.

The only solid proposal of the day came from the U.S. In a brief statement, Lodge suggested the immediate re-establishment of the Demilitarized Zone as an inviolate buffer zone between the two Viet Nams. He also urged efforts toward troop withdrawal by both sides. Saigon's chief delegate, Ambassador Pham Dang Lam, echoed the American proposals but could not resist a little propaganda on the side. "You'll never take the South by force," he warned the Communists. Shortly thereafter, the 6 1/2-hour conference ended with an agreement to reconvene this week.

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