Saturday, May 27, 1972
Hint Nixon, Soviet Leaders Shift Empahsis To Vietnam
MOSCOW (UPI) --President Nixon held to the treaty-a-day pace of his Moscow summit Thursday and signs appeared that he has moved into the biggest issue of all -Vietnam.Nixon, Secretary of State William P. Rogers and national security adviser Dr. Henry A. Kissinger spent two hours sitting across a Kremlin negotiating table with a Soviet team led by Premier Alexei N. Kosygin and President Nikolai V. Podgorny. It was the first time in the summit that Leonid I. Brezhnev, the Communist Party general secretary did not participate in a meeting.The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) was still under negotiation and White House aides said trade was the topic of Thursday's afternoon meeting. But the pattern of talks -17 hours with the President and four more before dawn in the Foreign Ministry Thursday between Kissinger and Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko -obviously meant that discussion had gone beyond what the two sides acknowledged in public.Diplomats said Vietnam undoubtedly would be discussed, and that the negotiators just as surely would not announce any agreement on the subject because neither side wishes to be accused of compromising the interests of its allies.In less tendentious areas, the summit turned out at least one treaty every day in champagne ceremonies at the Kremlin, the latest an agreement intended to prevent Soviet and American warships from harassing each other.The daily treaty signing ceremonies kept spirits high. Mrs. Brezhnev attested to it when reporters asked her about her husband's mood."Great," she exulted. "He's in a very good mood -but it's not always like that."The good feeling was expected to bring a presidential invitation to the Brezhnevs to visit Washington, White House sources said.Thursday's naval treaty, signed by U.S. Secretary of the Navy John Warner and Soviet Adm. Sergei Gorshkov, grew out of the Soviet Union's burgeoning naval might. As the Soviet navy spread into the world's ocean during the last five years there occurred more than 200 incidents of collisions, near-misses, airplane buzzing and seagoing games of "chicken."Admirals of the two nations negotiated the treaty to establish rules that would let their warships sail in peace.The other treaties signed in Vladimir Hall provided for joint efforts in pollution control, medical research, space exploration and science and technology.Still in the works were a trade agreement and the key item of the whole summit -SALT. Officials were optimistic that SALT will be settled and the Soviet press spokesman, Leonid I. Zamyatin, said the failure of Soviet and American negotiators to fly to Moscow from Helsinki yet was no indication of trouble."If there had been any complications they would have been here already in order to consult with their leaders," Zamyatin said.Wednesday's talks were the longest of the summit, starting with a full session of both teams in the afternoon and ending with five hours of dinner, boating and political talk between Nixon and Soviet leaders in a country house after midnight. After Nixon returned to the Kremlin his chief adviser, Kissinger, went to Gromyko's office for four more hours of talks that ran into the first light of dawn."Hint Nixon, Soviet Leaders Shift Emphasis to Vietnam," by (UPI), published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Sunday, May 27, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.