Peace Talks

LAST Friday's agreement on Paris negotiations is an encouraging break-through, but despite Administration jubilance, the development is not a blanket vindication of U.S. peace policies to date. Waging a quibbling tug of war, the U.S. has dragged a concession on negotiating sites from Hanoi, but substantive talks are going to demand more flexibility and consistency than U.S. diplomats showed during last month's peace campaign.

The welter of contested issues facing the Paris negotiators leaves prospects for genuine peace uncertain at best. It is clear that any final solution will require concessions far greater than the Johnson administration has shown any willingness to consider.

No U.S. policy-maker has yet formulated any coherent negotiating platform for the coming talks. This may be a bargaining tactic, aimed at leaving U.S. diplomats elbow room at the negotiating table. But it seems more likely that U.S. policy-makers have simply failed to confront the central issues. Poor planning took its propaganda toll last month as the Johnson Administration, failing to consider the implications of its rhetoric, promised to meet "anywhere, anyplace" with Communist negotiators, and then reneged on the promise.

The U.S. seems to be building a similar rhetorical trap for itself by supporting the hysterical South Vietnamese position on the National Liberation Front. Some sort of coalition, linked with withdrawal of North Vietnamese and American troops, now seems the most likely basis for a compromise peace settlement. The Thieu-Ky regime has so far rejected any coalition out of hand, obviously aware that genuine cooperation would doom their military regime.

U.S. diplomats will also have to overcome an alarming tendency to apply totally different standards to Communist and American actions. President Johnson warned against interpreting the bombing curtailment as a sign of weakness, but U.S. officials immediately called North Vietnam's acceptance of Paris a retreat. U.S. military men justify new military sweeps--the largest of the war--on the grounds that they're defensive, but Dean Rusk warns that any comparable Communist escalation will jeopardize peace talks.

The double standard, combined with inflexible stands on the issues, could doom the peace talks to break-down or stalemate. If the agreement on Paris was a triumph for U.S. diplomacy, it could also be a prelude to disastrous--and avoidable--diplomatic failure.