Friday, April 28, 1972
Say Russ Aided Paris Talks While Pouring Arms To Hanoi
WASHINGTON (AP) --The Soviet Union helped at "several critical points" in starting the 1968-69 Paris peace talks while, at the same time, providing Hanoi with large amounts of sophisticated weapons, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.The newspaper's reports were based on secret documents prepared for the National Security Council as a general review of the war during the period that included the start of the Paris talks and the 1968 halt of U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.Post reporter Murrey Marder said the report, obtained independently by the Post, listed Soviet Ambassador to the United States Valerian Zorin and the Russian minister to Paris, Valentin Oberemko, as intermediaries in the negotiations.The result of all this activity was the halt to the bombing and the start of the Paris talks, although Moscow and Hanoi denied the Soviet role at the time.Although the study said Hanoi gave Moscow no veto over the efforts at opening peace talks, the Post said Secretary of State William P. Rogers credited the Soviets with playing a major role."We attribute more significance than does the embassy (the U.S. embassy in Saigon) to Soviet efforts to be helpful in moving the negotiations ahead, and we think the evidence that they did so is quite clear," Rogers is quoted as saying.Rogers' assessment in the NSC study, dated Dec. 21, 1969, added that while Hanoi may have used the Soviets to convey its own policy in order to save face, the Russians "employed their influence over Hanoi in generally constructive direction both as to timing and substance."The NSC study was prepared by the State Department, Pentagon, Central Intelligence Agency and high military officials.It remains officially classified as secret although the Post, New York Times, Newsweek magazine and syndicated columnist Jack Anderson have published large sections of the study.According to the Post, the State Department said in the study "The Soviets have experienced the full degree of Hanoi's ideological rigidity and distrust of the West, and on occasion they have privately deplored excessive North Vietnamese stubbornness."The newspaper said the study gave credit to the Soviets starting in May 1968 with beginning "a new and decidedly more assertive phase of their diplomacy.""Say Russ Aided Paris Talks While Pouring Arms to Hanoi", by (AP) published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes on Friday, April 28, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.