Monday, May 1, 1972
Russ Officials Visit Hanoi
Tass said Deputy foreign Minister Nikolai Firyubin, Communist Party Secretary Konstantin Katyushev and Party Official Igor Ognetov conferred with Premier Pham Van Dong and other Hanoi officials April 26 to 29.Kissinger, President Nixon's national security adviser, visited Moscow secretly April 20 to 24 for talks with Communist Party Leader Leonid I. Brezhnev on the Vietnam war situation and other policy problems."The delegation expressed the feelings of the invariable solidarity of the Soviet people with the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people against the American aggression," Tass said."Questions connected with the development and strengthening of Soviet-Vietnamese relations as well as some questions of mutual interest were discussed in the course of the conversations that passed in an atmosphere of cordiality, fraternal friendship and mutual understanding."Western diplomatic sources in Moscow said they rated the Firyubin-Katyushev mission as a bid to "assure the North Vietnamese that we're still friends and everything is all right, in the wake of the Kissinger visit and prior to the President's arrival."They said they thought it was also possible the Soviet officials were carrying some specific proposals or Soviet appeals that might have grown out of the Brezhnev-Kissinger talks.The diplomats noted that the United States agreed, with qualifications, to return to the Paris peace talks a few days after Kissinger left Moscow.The Soviets could not have chosen more prestigious men than Firyubin and Katyushev to execute their mission unless they had sent members of the ruling troika itself.Firyubin runs the Soviet Foreign Ministry's section on Far Eastern and Southeast Asian affairs.Katyushev is the Communist Party secretary in charge of relations with ruling foreign Communist parties. In that specialty area, he ranks second behind only Brezhnev himself within the party hierarchy.Ognetov is a member of the governing party central committee.The presence of both government and party leaders in the Soviet mission indicates the task was one of the utmost importance and not just a routine review of policy matters, diplomatic sources said.Tass said it had the status of "a friendly unofficial visit," which would indicate a hastily-arranged, working mission.___________________________________________"Russ Officials Visit Hanoi," by (UPI), published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes on Monday, May 1, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.