Indo-Soviet Trade-Filling the US Aid Gap

the Paris talks on Vietnam on Thursday once again underlined that the only negotiated settlement that the United States is interested in is one substantially on its terms. The motions of returning to the talks, which the US itself had earlier broken off, and the elaborately planted rumours of secret contacts between its representatives and those of North Vietnam outside the formal talks were, it is now evident, all intended to prepare the ground for the next phase of America's war on Vietnam. They were also intended to quieten domestic opinion in the US by presenting the picture of a reasonable American president exploring every avenue for resuming the negotiations before being finally thwarted by the intransigence of an arrogant enemy. Yet in the open confrontations at Paris the arrogance was all seen on the US side. Most arrogant of all was the 8-point questionnaire addressed to the Vietnamese side by the chief US delegate which in effect, apart from demanding that the Vietnamese call off their present offensive, also required them to give up the gains of the last few weeks' fighting and, indeed, give an undertaking not to disturb the puppet regime in Saigon