Bombs, Bombast and Negotiations

ALL last winter, Republicans in Washington repeated with a knowing air that Viet Nam would not be an issue in the 1972 presidential campaign --Richard Nixon, they intimated, would pull the rug out from under any Democrat who chose to run against the Administration's war policy. It may yet be so. But last week, as the campaign geared up toward its fall momentum, Viet Nam had again driven other issues into the background.

The bombing went on unabated; on one day last week, the U.S. pounded the North with 370 missions, one of the heaviest strikes of the war. Just as actively, the Administration was busy trying to coax forth some negotiated settlement. National Security Affairs Adviser Henry Kissinger met in Paris with North Viet Nam's Le Due Tho for the 16th of their secret conferences. Scarcely by coincidence, Le Due Tho flew to Peking to talk to Premier Chou En-lai and then on to Hanoi to consult with his government while Kissinger flew to Saigon for nearly six hours of talks with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. At least some approach toward a settlement was obviously being explored. At week's end Kissinger returned to Camp David, Nixon's mountain hideaway in Maryland, to report the results of his meetings.

Diplomatic Trajectories. George McGovern lost no time in charging that Nixon "has manipulated Mr. Kissinger and American public opinion to appear to be negotiating, when actually he has been stalling to prop up General Thieu and his corrupt military regime in Saigon." Speculation both in Washington and Saigon, however, focused on the real possibility of a cease-fire being arranged, with the U.S. agreeing to halt the bombing and mining of the North in return for P.O.W.s. But any such exchange might still be weeks away, at least. In his talks with Kissinger, Thieu resisted any cease-fire plan that would not provide for North Vietnamese withdrawal. According to one authority in Saigon, Thieu and Kissinger explored a number of scenarios but arrived at no major decisions. There remained the chance, however, that Nixon might use the forum of the Republican Convention this week to break news of new peace initiatives or even arrangements.

It seemed clear that the U.S. election had become a factor in any possible settlement. Hanoi itself has become a careful observer of U.S. politics. At some point in the coming weeks, the North Vietnamese may decide whether to come to terms with the Nixon Administration before November or gamble on George McGovern's election in hopes of a better bargain.

As Kissinger arced through his diplomatic trajectories, the Democrats churned up bitter disputes at home about the war. Returning from a two week trip to North Viet Nam as part of a commission inquiring into U.S. crimes in Indochina, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark testified to the devastation wrought there by American bombing. "I saw hospitals bombed, some just damaged, some destroyed," he told a San Francisco press conference. "We're bombing the hell out of that poor land. You better believe we hit dikes and sluices and canals."

Outrageous. On his trip, Clark visited ten U.S. P.O.W.s. They were, he said, humanely treated, unbrainwashed and healthy. Clark predicted that some prisoners--"a few"--might be released, but he did not know when. Said Clark: "What they will tell you--and I have a little difficulty arguing with it--is that we can't release pilots while pilots are killing our children. That doesn't mean if we stop the bombing, but don't reach a military and political settlement, that they would return the prisoners."

Clark's trip aroused quick and partisan indignation from Republicans. Many charged that Clark had actually made broadcasts in Hanoi condemning the U.S. bombing--a charge that Clark denied. He said that he specifically refused an invitation to broadcast, but that the North Vietnamese had recorded some of his comments at press conferences and then played them over Hanoi radio. They might have done as much, he argued, with remarks he made in the U.S. Former Attorney General John Mitchell called it "outrageous conduct" nonetheless, and Secretary of State William Rogers sputtered: "It is beyond belief. I can't remember any time in our history when anything comparable has happened."

Still in the air was Sargent Shriver's charge, first leveled two weeks ago, that Nixon had "blown" a chance to negotiate peace at the beginning of his term. Averell Harriman and Cyrus Vance, two Paris negotiators during the Johnson regime, supported Shriver, claiming that North Viet Nam's withdrawal of 22 to 25 regiments from the two northernmost provinces of South Viet Nam during the summer and fall of 1968 "signaled its willingness to reduce the level of violence." "Bunk," said Rogers.

Actually, the charge was a matter of interpretation. The North Vietnamese never said four years ago whether their redeployment was meant as a political signal. Shriver's argument was somewhat vitiated by the fact that the withdrawal occurred well before L.B.J. left office. Nor did it help his case that Shriver was not widely known as an antiwar critic at the time and that he stayed on at his ambassadorial post in Paris for one year of the Nixon Administration. At this late date, however, both Republicans and Democrats were playing the issue for political effect; the real question of whether a chance was missed remained somewhat obscure.

Listening Tour. The war and domestic politics were entangled again, more immediately, in a curious episode last week involving Pierre Salinger. Salinger told reporters he had spoken to the North Vietnamese in Paris on behalf of McGovern to find out whether they planned to release any American prisoners soon. Their answer: no.

When first asked about Salinger's mission, George McGovern was visiting the Illinois State Fair at Springfield. Initially, he seemed to deny that Salinger was acting on his instructions. Then later, he issued a statement saying that Salinger had indeed met with the North Vietnamese on his behalf, but only to make a middle-level inquiry about the possibility of prisoner release. Immediately, however, the White House claimed that McGovern's efforts could undermine the negotiations. Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler said such contacts "could jeopardize the President's efforts to reach peace in Viet Nam."

That hardly seemed likely; the North Vietnamese are well aware of the American political situation and what they could expect from a McGovern Administration. The episode, with its abrupt denial and then clarification, did, however, contribute somewhat to McGovern's own credibility problem, a general impression that his staff work remains strangely uncoordinated.

As the war issue swept back and forth across the partisan lines, McGovern himself continued a low-profile listening tour of the nation, this time traveling through the Midwest. He had been scheduled last week to patch up his troubles with Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley, but Daley abruptly postponed the session. He was evidently irritated by a McGovern interview in TIME last week, in which the candidate said that he had to make a "deliberate effort" to ask support from party regulars, an effort that was apt to "offend tender skins." But McGovern did collect a welcome bonus from another party regular; Lyndon Johnson broke his long silence by endorsing the Democratic ticket, even though he noted: "It is no secret that Senator McGovern and I have widely differing opinions on many matters, especially foreign policy." This week, McGovern will make a pilgrimage to the L.B.J. ranch to find what he has in common with Johnson.

McGovern continued insistently if not very optimistically to challenge Nixon to come forth from the political sanctuary of the White House and debate the issues. It was probably a forlorn hope. As McGovern tried to flush Nixon out, the President remained intent on his own formula for reelection, which includes working at intricate Viet Nam scenarios. One of them, Nixon hopes, might yet make good the G.O.P. promise that by November, the issue of Viet Nam will have receded into relative insignificance.

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