Tightening the Noose

Peace in Indochina last week continued to look rather ominously like war anywhere else. Fighting continued sporadically in South Viet Nam. Meanwhile, Communist forces in Cambodia continued to tighten the noose around the capital of Phnom-Penh, raising again the question of how long the bumbling government of ailing President Lon Nol could effectively survive. Amidst these signs that the cease-fire agreement has all but collapsed, the White House announced that Presidential Adviser Henry Kissinger would return to Paris in mid-May for another round of talks with the silver-haired chief North Vietnamese negotiator, Le Duc Tho.

The two will have plenty to discuss. Three months have now passed since the cease-fire went into effect, and violations by both sides continue unabated in South Viet Nam. Political negotiations between the Saigon government and the Viet Cong are being held, as specified by the Paris accord, but they are locked in stalemate over a crucial issue. Saigon insists that elections to determine the future government of South Viet Nam must be tied to a full-scale withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops from the South. The Communists maintain, quite accurately, that no such stipulation is made by the Paris accord.

Although it is hard to imagine that Kissinger and Tho can resolve that intense disagreement, Washington seems determinedly hopeful about the prospects for the meeting. Its purpose, said White House sources, would be to find ways of achieving "strict implementation" of the cease-fire agreement, and to make "a systematic review of each other's grievances."

The Administration's reasoning was that North Viet Nam had already moved extensive military supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the past three months. Perhaps now, with the rainy season due to begin before very long, the North Vietnamese might be prepared to settle some of the disputed points that were not resolved by the Paris agreement. At week's end Hanoi raised some doubts about whether the Kissinger-Tho meeting would be held at all, apparently in an effort to pressure the U.S. into resuming the clearing of mines in North Vietnamese waters. But, with preliminary talks already under way between the deputy negotiators, William Sullivan for the U.S. and Nguyen Co Thach for North Viet Nam, it seemed probable that the top-level meetings would take place on schedule.

Without question, the primary topic at the new negotiations will be the desperate situation in Cambodia, where Communist and a wide variety of other antigovernment forces are making impressive headway. Last week they seized a part of the east bank of the Mekong River opposite Phnom-Penh's downtown port area. Ferries bustled back and forth bringing swarms of refugees fleeing villages only two miles away on the opposite bank.

On some nights, Phnom-Penh residents were kept awake until dawn by the rumble of high-flying B-52s and the boom of F-111s dropping their bombs only four or five miles distant from the city. Communist gunners fired at least ten rockets at the capital's only airport, killing 19 people and wounding 62, but the airport remained open.

Until last week most foreign observers continued to maintain that the Communist forces had no intention of taking Phnom-Penh. If they did so, they would have to contend with the problems of running the city and taking care of thousands of refugees. Now the intelligence experts are not so sure. The Communists have already created, with startling ease, a secure corridor in eastern Cambodia opposite South Viet Nam, where some 36,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops are located. The assault on Phnom-Penh--contrary to repeated claims by both the U.S. and Cambodian governments--is being conducted not by the North Vietnamese but by home-grown Cambodian insurgents who have at least 15 battalions, or 6,000 men, within a 25-mile radius of the city. The big question: Are the insurgents ready to attack Phnom-Penh? "They have done extraordinarily well despite the U.S. bombing," says one Western diplomat in the capital. "I think they are ready to pluck the ripe fruit."

With his capital surrounded and his troops in flight, Lon Nol finally yielded to American pressure last week and agreed to broaden the base of his government. He formally inaugurated a new executive council in which he will share power with three political opponents: Sisowath Sirik Matak. In Tam and Cheng Heng, all of whom took part in the overthrow of exiled Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970. There was a strong likelihood, however, that Lon Nol's concession had come too late to avert disaster.

The U.S. diplomatic strategy is to get the strongest possible Cambodian team to the conference table, the sooner the better. The first step would be a ceasefire, followed by negotiations between the new government council, Sihanouk and the insurgents. The U.S. has never favored a Laos-model solution for Cambodia, with members of all leading factions represented in a single government. Given the state of the fighting around Phnom-Penh and the uncertain stability of the Lon Nol regime, the Administration might well have to settle for such a solution now.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.